the mourning after: statius thebaid 12

THE MOURNING AFTER: STATIUS THEBAID 12

VICTORIA E. PAGÁN

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Wie er aufdem letzten Hügel, der ihm ganz sein Talnoch einmal zeigt, sich wendet, anhält, weilt—,so leben wir und nehmen immer Abschied.

As he, onthe last hill, which shows him his valleyone last time, turns back, stops, lingers—,so we live and ever take our leave.

—Rilke, Eighth Elegy

RECENT, FRUITFUL READINGS of the end of the Thebaid have come along way toward identifying the political import of the arrival of The-seus and the laments of the Theban women, although consensus re-mains in the distance.1 Some scholars have tried to resolve the difficul-ties posed by the oft–disparaged “superfluous” book 12 by examiningStatius’ resolution of the Theban epic against the backdrop of the end-ings of the Iliad or the Aeneid, for instance, thus bringing us closer tounderstanding the dilemma encountered when a poet does (or doesnot) reach the end of an epic.2 Both the political and the literary–historical approaches to the problem, however, still fail to convince op-ponents that the poem does or does not end conclusively. Valid argu-ments accrue on both sides, and the mosaic of interpretations itselfrecreates the stunning effect produced in book 12.

For present purposes I accept Braund’s argument that the The-baid ends, and that it ends several times over, and that the repeatedgestures toward closure do not undermine but reinforce its ultimate ter-mination. The last ten lines of book 12 (especially 816–17) display an

1Braund (1996, esp. 16–18) summarizes the three basic schools of thought regard-ing the end of the Thebaid (optimistic, pessimistic, pluralistic). Dietrich’s gendered read-ings (1997, forthcoming) argue for openness traditionally associated with weak or femi-nine structure.

2Hardie 1997, 151–56.

American Journal of Philology 121 (2000) 423–452 � 2000 by The Johns Hopkins University Press

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unease with the poem’s status vis–à–vis the Aeneid and an apprehen-sion at simply letting go, despite the need. But the sphragis, when con-sidered in the context of what I call an “aftermath narrative,” or the de-scription which follows a battle, reveals more. The aftermath of a battleaffects a community, and this highly emotional reaction is captured innarrative. Because aftermath narratives are present in different worksof Latin literature, comparison allows a pattern to emerge. Once weidentify the elements of this rhetorical commonplace,3 we can observethe way Statius uses it and adapts it to his needs in book 12. With a bet-ter understanding of the phenomenon of aftermath, it is possible to ap-preciate the apprehension, as well as the finality, that accompanies theend of the epic.

More specifically, the term “aftermath narrative” refers to the pic-ture of a battlefield strewn with decaying corpses, weapons, horses, hel-mets, and debris. The field is inspected in broad daylight, usually on themorning after the battle, by the living, either the victorious generals or,less specifically, the survivors whose concern it is to bury the dead.4Thus the reader sees the aftermath through the eyes of those who re-turn to the battlefield. This inspection is an intermediate step betweenthe destruction of war and the funeral rites. Paradoxically, war gives thesoldier an opportunity to earn laus and gloria and so to reaffirm thefame of his ancestors and enhance the fame of his progeny.5 But in hisdeath he also becomes a burden of responsibility to his kin.6 His corpseis a polluted thing which must be purified by the act of burial. Thus af-termath is part of the transition from the violent disruption of war tothe settlement of the dispute and a return to a state of equilibrium. Ascene of aftermath necessarily looks backward and recreates the battlein the mind’s eye, but it also looks forward to the more permanent re-sults for the winners and the losers of the battle, and ultimately, of the

3Hinds 1998, 40: “The so–called commonplace, despite our name for it, is not aninert category in this discourse but an active one, with as much potential to draw poetand reader into, as away from, engagement with the specificities of its history.”

4Toynbee 1971, 43: “All Roman funerary practice was influenced by two basic no-tions—first, that death brought pollution and demanded from the survivors acts of purifi-cation and expiation; secondly, that to leave a corpse unburied had unpleasant repercus-sions on the fate of the departed soul.”

5On Roman Republican attitudes to war see Harris 1986, 9–53, esp. 23–27 on glo-ria and laus.

6Cf. Redfield 1994, 179: “The dead warrior comes into the hands of his women; hewho has been so long their protection becomes their task.”

424 VICTORIA E. PAGÁN


war. Thus when represented in literature, an aftermath narrative affordsan author the opportunity to explore the intertwining nexus of past,present, and future. The survey of aftermath is the means by whichthose who have experienced the trauma of war come to terms with dev-astating loss and brutal destruction in their very midst.

An author also experiences a sort of aftermath. For example,upon finishing his most recent novel, The Ground beneath Her Feet,Salman Rushdie said in an interview, “One of the problems of writing a book . . . is that when you finish it, there’s a colossal hole in yourhead—an enormous emptiness where the novel used to be. And it takesa while to fill that up.”7 Once the work is completed, the author canstand back and survey his work, comprehending it in its entirety. He canrevisit the completed pages without concern for editing or rewriting.The project is complete, and yet the author feels an emptiness. I arguethat this type of anxiety is present at the end of the Thebaid. Moreover,the reader can also desire “endings beyond the ending.”8 At the end ofthe epic, the reader also stands back and surveys the aftermath of thelegend of Thebes. The concept of aftermath allows us to draw a parallelbetween the general, returning to inspect the smoldering battlefield,and the exhausted poet, surveying his finished product.

In order to recognize the cultural and poetic implications that af-termath has for the end of this epic, it is necessary to identify severalexamples in Latin literature. First I demonstrate how the Latin histori-ans Sallust, Livy, and Tacitus and the epic poets Lucan and Silius Itali-cus employ the topos. Then a discussion of aftermath scenes in books 3,5, and 11 of the Thebaid leads to the most extensive scene of aftermath,the first 59 lines of book 12. Against this background of aftermath, wewill finally turn to lines 12.810–19. In these self–conscious lines the cul-tural meaning of aftermath is embedded in the poet’s statement of hismethod of literary production. We shall see that as survivors mourn andbury their dead, so the poet mourns and lays to rest his own creation.

AFTERMATH NARRATIVES IN LATIN LITERATURE

Other epic conventions in the Thebaid have been identified and ex-plored: for instance, the storm scene, the catalogue of armies, the tei-

7McGrath 1999.8Roberts 1997, 254.

425THE MOURNING AFTER: STATIUS THEBAID 12


choscopia, the funeral games, necromancy, and katabasis.9 Even thesphragis has its antecedents in the Georgics (4.559–66) and the Meta-morphoses (15.871–79). Representations of battles in progress (Schlacht-schilderungen) have attracted scrutiny for some time.10 Prebattle exhor-tations in ancient historiography have also been collected and studied.11

But aftermath scenes have not been singled out and examined on theirown. Thus, some statements of method are preliminary to my exposition.First, I do not attempt here to provide a comprehensive inventory ofaftermath narratives; rather, a few striking examples will highlight themain components of the topos in order to formulate a working defini-tion. Second, the specific examples are selected because they all describe,in varying degrees, the panorama of a battlefield after a battle. Whilethey may share an “accidental confluence” of diction,12 I am more con-cerned with the similarity of their content: survivors returning to viewthe broken, dismembered corpses of men slain in battle scattered abouta smoldering field. The examples presented below cut across genericboundaries precisely because representation of the experience of warand its aftermath is not the exclusive prerogative of either poetry orprose, epic or history.13

Every battle offers a chance to narrate its aftermath.14 Gruesome

9Vessey 1973, 196–229.10E.g., in historiography, Plathner 1934; Gaida 1934; Wellesley 1969, esp. 85; in

epic, Willcock 1983; Bonds 1985; Horsfall 1987; Rossi 1997. On the motif of the capturedcity in Latin literature see Paul 1982; on the sacked city see Ziolkowski 1993.

11Hansen 1993.12Hinds 1998, 17–20.13Actium and its aftermath occupied the imagination of Vergil (Aen. 8.675–728)

and Horace (Ep. 9, Carm. 1.37); see Gurval 1995, 159, on Horace’s “personal and com-plex response to a critical and still confused situation” (emphasis mine). The essence ofaftermath is discernible in contemporary American lyric poetry as well: consider Forché,Angel of History (1994), or F. Bidart (1997), “The Return”; and below, note 71. For astudy of how the epics of Vergil, Lucan, and Statius engage the historiographic traditionsee Heinrich 1996.

14Of course, authors do not necessarily take advantage of the opportunity to in-clude the aftermath of a battle. To a large extent, this present investigation is motivatedby a statement by Woodman (1979, 232 n. 8): “The very paucity of such ‘visits to battle–fields’ in Latin literature is another reason why I do not believe there can have been acommon literary prototype from which Livy, Virgil, Lucan and Tacitus all derive: if sucha prototype had existed, it would surely have been used more frequently than this.” Thepaucity of aftermath narratives is indisputable; but rather than posit the existence of thetopos as contrafactual ex silentio, I start from the premise that it is detectable in the ex-tant sources.


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descriptions of the remains of corpses on battlefields frequently occurin historical texts. Sallust begins the last chapter of De Coniuratione Ca-tilinae (61.1) with the temporal ablative absolute sed confecto proelio,and the present contrary–to–fact protasis tum vero cerneres. Thus heinvites the reader to see the aftermath in the mind’s eye. The corpses ofCatiline and his men, all uniformly wounded in the front, reveal theirunflinching unanimity of purpose: they died facing their enemy. But thearmy of the Roman people gained a joyful victory at a bloody price:

nam strenuissumus quisque aut occiderat in proelio aut graviter volnera-tus discesserat. multi autem, qui e castris visundi aut spoliandi gratia pro-cesserant, volventes hostilia cadavera amicum alii, pars hospitem aut cog-natum reperiebant; fuere item qui inimicos suos cognoscerent. ita varieper omnem exercitum laetitia maeror, luctus atque gaudia agitabantur.

(61.7–9)

For each had either fallen in battle most ardently or, gravely wounded,had yielded. Moreover, there were many who set out from camp to in-spect or to collect spoils; when they turned over enemy corpses, somefound a friend, others a stranger or a relative; there were also those whofound their own personal enemies. Thus in various ways the entire armyexperienced happiness and sadness, grief and joy.

The position of the bodies on the battlefield indicates the course of thebattle. It is possible to recreate the events and to discern which soldiersdied instantly where they were struck, and which ones, wounded, diedlater. Then Sallust closes with a meditation on the dual nature of this in-ternecine conflict. The civil strife is ended, but the community is onlybeginning to realize the high price it paid. As the survivors collect theirdead, in an intermediate step between war and peace, so they arepoised between conflict and resolution. Looking back, they see the dan-ger Catiline posed to the state; looking forward, they see the safety towhich they are only just now delivered. In this intermediate state, Sal-lust’s monograph ends with a chiastic flourish of emotions wavering be-tween joy and grief: laetitia maeror, luctus atque gaudia.

Livy recounts that Hannibal visited the scene of the battle ofCannae:

postero die ubi primum inluxit, ad spolia legenda foedamque etiamhostibus spectandam stragem insistunt. iacebant tot Romanorum milia,pedites passim equitesque, ut quem cuique fors aut pugna iunxerat autfuga . . . praecipue convertit omnes subtractus Numida mortuo super-



incubanti Romano vivus naso auribusque laceratis, cum manibus ad capi-endum telum inutilibus, in rabiem ira versa laniando dentibus hostemexspirasset. (22.51.5–6, 9)

The next day, as soon as it was light, they pressed forward to collect thespoils and to inspect the slaughter horrible even to the enemy. So manythousands of Romans were lying about, cavalry and infantry here andthere, as fortune joined each either in battle or flight. . . . Especially therecaught everyone’s attention a Numidian dragged out alive from under adead Roman, with his nose and ears mutilated; for the Roman, when hishands were no longer able to grasp a weapon, died with his anger turnedinto a fit of rage, while ripping the enemy with his teeth.

Livy first situates this highly visual scene temporally: postero die ubi pri-mum inluxit. Dawn breaks over the battlefield and illuminates the car-nage. He then proceeds to describe, in graphic detail, the course of thebattle from the evidence left on the field: the remains of cavalry and in-fantry, those who held their ground and those who fled, and mutilatedcorpses. Decorum dictates that he can but hint at cannibalism, and thecharge is mitigated by the Roman’s fierce display of loyalty even in theface of death.15 Thus the aftermath is an extension of the battle scene inwhich Livy can recount both the horrors and the glory of war. From theremains, it is evident that fortune (fors) played a role in the events ofthe battle. Then at 22.52.6, “Hannibal ordered the corpses of his men tobe brought together for burial; . . . some authors say the Roman consulwas sought out and buried as well.”16

At Annals 1.61–62 Tacitus describes the visit of Germanicus andhis soldiers to the Teutoburg Forest, the site of Quintilius Varus’ defeatby the Germans in A.D. 9. It is unique among our examples because it isthe only instance of a return six years after the battle has been fought,and in fact Germanicus was not even the general in command.17 Thenarrative is situated temporally: igitur omnis qui aderat exercitus sextumpost cladis annum (1.62.1). The description of the earthworks and thephysical layout of the battlefield is interwoven with the eerie scene of

15Statius does not shrink from the horror of cannibalism at 8.751–66, and there isno redemption in Tydeus’ action.

16Liv. 22.52.6: tum sepeliendi causa conferri in unum corpora suorum iussit; ad octomilia fuisse dicuntur fortissimorum virorum. consulem quoque Romanum conquisitum se-pultumque quidam auctores sunt.

17For a discussion of the intricate temporal sequence of this episode see Pagán1999, 310–11.



dismembered cavalry and infantry. Heaps and mounds of whiteningbones make it possible to determine, six years after the battle, wheresome stood fast and where others fled, each according to his own fate.And the entire episode is framed by Germanicus’ desire to bury thedead.18 This has been compared to Vitellius’ return to Bedriacum:19

inde Vitellius Cremonam flexit et spectato munere Caecinae insistereBedriacensibus campis ac vestigia recentis victoriae lustrare oculis con-cupivit, foedum atque atrox spectaculum intra quadragensimum pugnaediem: lacera corpora, trunci artus, putres virorum equorumque formae,infecta tabo humus, protritis arboribus ac frugibus dira vastitas.

(Hist. 2.70)

Vitellius then directed his course to Cremona and conceived a desire tovisit the plains of Bedriacum and to survey the scene of the recent vic-tory, a foul and ghastly sight, as not quite forty days had passed. There laymangled corpses, severed limbs, and the putrefying forms of men andhorses; the soil was saturated with gore, and, with levelled trees andcrops, horrible was the desolation.

Again, the scene is marked temporally: intra quadragensimum pugnaediem. Again, the survivors’ memory of the order of events is jogged bythe evidence on the battlefield before them, and these cues help recre-ate the battle in the mind’s eye:

aderant Valens et Caecina monstrabantque pugnae locos: hinc inrupisselegionum agmen, hinc equites coortos, inde circumfusas auxiliorummanus. (2.70)

18Tac. Ann. 1.61, igitur cupido Caesarem invadit solvendi suprema militibus duci-que, permoto ad miserationem omni qui aderat exercitu ob propinquos, amicos, deniqueob casus bellorum et sortem hominum. praemisso Caecina, ut occulta saltuum scrutareturpontesque et aggeres umido paludum et fallacibus campis imponeret, incedunt maestos lo-cos visuque ac memoria deformes. prima Vari castra lato ambitu et dimensis principiistrium legionum manus ostentabant; dein semiruto vallo, humili fossa accisae iam reliquiaeconsedisse intellegebantur. medio campi albentia ossa, ut fugerant, ut restiterant, disiectavel aggerata. adiacebant fragmina telorum equorumque artus, simul truncis arborum ante-fixa ora. lucis propinquis barbarae arae, apud quas tribunos ac primorum ordinum centu-riones mactaverant. et cladis eius superstites, pugnam aut vincula elapsi, referebant hic ce-cidisse legatos, illic raptas aquilas; primum ubi vulnus Varo adactum, ubi infelici dextera etsuo ictu mortem invenerit; quo tribunali contionatus Arminius, quot patibula captivis, quaescrobes, utque signis et aquilis per superbiam inluserit.

19Woodman 1979; contra Morgan 1992.



Valens and Caecina were there, showing the positions of the battle: onthis side the battle line of the legions rushed forth; on that side the cav-alry charged; over there a band of auxiliary forces was surrounded.20

Tribunes, prefects, and common soldiers also contribute to the narra-tive, and in their sorrow, all bemoan their fate (sors rerum). But Ger-manicus in the Teutoburg Forest, intent on burying his fellow country-men, displays pietas, whereas Vitellius at Bedriacum, eager to see thegory battlefield, behaves like a tyrant.21 Tacitus states that “Vitellius did not turn away his eyes” but beheld the sight willingly, unaware ofthe doom which was close upon himself.22 In the aftermath of Bedria-cum the past was visible but the consequences of the battle were stillshrouded in an uncertain future.

Unfortunately the historical epics of Ennius and Naevius are toofragmentary to determine whether they included aftermath scenes. Butwith a characteristic affinity for excessive carnage, Lucan proffers amodel.23 Caesar sits above Pharsalus at the end of book 7 (7.787–846)and feasts amidst the horror of the blood–soaked battlefield, refusingburial for the slain:

postquam clara dies Pharsalica damna retexitnulla loci facies revocat feralibus arvishaerentes oculos. cernit propulsa cruoreflumina et excelsos cumulis aequantia collescorpora, sidentes in tabem spectat acervoset Magni numerat populos, epulisque paraturille locus, voltus ex quo faciesque iacentumagnoscat. iuvat Emathiam non cernere terramet lustrare oculis campos sub clade latentes.fortunam superosque suos in sanguine cernit. (Phars. 7.787–96)

20The passage continues: iam tribuni praefectique, sua quisque facta extollentes,falsa vera aut maiora vero miscebant. vulgus quoque militum clamore et gaudio deflecterevia, spatia certaminum recognoscere, aggerem armorum, strues corporum intueri mirari; eterant quos varia sors rerum lacrimaeque et misericordia subiret.

21Keitel 1992.22Tac. Hist. 2.70, at non Vitellius flexit oculos nec tot milia insepultorum civium ex-

horruit: laetus ultro et tam propinquae sortis ignarus instaurabat sacrum dis loci.23On post–Vergilian obsessions with the melodramatic, the mysterious, and the

horrifying see Williams 1978, 254–61; note that alongside the poets Ovid, Lucan, Valerius,Seneca, and Statius, Williams includes Tacitus (Ann. 1.61–62). In defense of Lucan’s deca-dence see Johnson 1987, 123–34 (an application of his argument for the “counter–classi-cal sensibility” [1970]); see also Vessey 1973, 230; Henderson 1991, 47.



After daybreak revealed the ruins of Pharsalus, no appearance of theplace recalls his eyes as they gaze upon the deadly field. He sees riversswelled with blood and heaps of corpses like high hills; he observes hugepiles settling into decay, and he counts the host of Pompey, and that placeis prepared for a feast, where he recognizes the faces and features ofthose lying about. He is pleased not to see the soil of Emathia, and hegluts his eyes on the field obscured by the destruction. He spies fortuneand the gods’ hand in the bloodshed.24

Like Livy in his narrative of Cannae, Lucan opens the scene on themorning after the battle: postquam clara dies. Broad daylight revealsthe slain bodies. The proximity of the corpora and Caesar’s epulae sug-gests, but keeps a cautious distance from, cannibalism. Here too Lucannotes the role of fortune in battle: fortunam . . . cernit (7.796). As Han-nibal the victorious general inspects the slaughter after Cannae, so Cae-sar, victor of Pharsalus, surveys his handiwork. In fact, Lucan explicitlycompares Caesar to Hannibal, but Caesar falls short:

invidet igne rogi miseris caeloque nocentiingerit Emathiam. non illum Poenus humatorconsulis et Libyca succensae lampade Cannaeconpellunt. (7.798–801)

He begrudges the flame of a pyre to the miserable, and he forces Emathiaupon the guilty heavens. The Carthaginian who buried a consul and Can-nae lit by Lybian torch did not move him.

Even the Carthaginian provided burial for the slain Roman consul.25

Thus there are two different types of Romans who inspect the after-math of a battle: those who bury the dead, and those who simply gapeat the carnage; decent generals or lawful citizens who restore order tosociety, and tyrants who revel in its destruction.

Later Flavian epic does not miss the opportunity for gratuitousgore patent in a smoldering battlefield. It is up to Silius Italicus, follow-ing Livy,26 to capture in hexameter the panorama of the aftermath of

24For Leigh (1997, 297) this scene is part of a larger theme of disengaged obser-vation.

25According to Valerius Maximus, the measure of humanitas and clementia is ageneral’s magnanimity in returning the bodies of the defeated enemy; see Braund 1997,20. Of the numerous exempla of such magnanimous generals, both Roman and foreign,this anecdote about Hannibal and Paulus is given pride of place, at the end of the chap-ter (5.1 ext. 6).

26Nicol 1936, 60.



the Battle of Cannae and to report Hannibal’s burial of the consulPaulus:

atque ea dum Rutulis turbata mente geruntur,lustrabat campos et saevae tristia dextraefacta recensebat, pertractans vulnera visu,Hannibal et, magna circumstipante caterva,dulcia praebebat trucibus spectacula Poenis. (Punica 10.449–53)

And so while the Romans were thus engaged with troubled hearts, Han-nibal was lustrating the battlefield and numbering the sad deeds of hiscruel hand, examining the wounds in great detail. Accompanied by agreat crowd, he was showing sights pleasing to the ruthless Carthaginians.

Like Lucan, Silius draws attention to Hannibal’s magnanimity in bury-ing his enemy Paulus: hinc citus ad tumulum donataque funera Paulo /ibat et hostilis leti iactabat honorem (10.558–59), “From here Hannibalwent quickly to the funeral rites granted to Paulus, proud of showinghonor to a dead enemy.” Livy merely reports the fact that Hannibalgranted burial to Paulus (22.52.6);27 Lucan only mentions the fact tocontrast the generosity of the foreign, barbarian enemy with Caesar’scruelty. Only Silius goes on at length to describe the consul’s funeral(10.558–77).

Before turning to the Thebaid it will be useful to collate our find-ings from these examples. I have identified eight common elements.

(1) Each aftermath scene is set apart from the rest of the narra-tive temporally: sed confecto proelio (Sall. 61.1); postero die ubi primuminluxit (Liv. 22.51.5); sextum post cladis annum (Tac. Ann. 1.62.1); intraquadragensimum pugnae diem (Tac. Hist. 2.70.1); postquam clara dies(Luc. 7.787); postera cum thalamis Aurora rubebit apertis (Sil. 10.525).

(2) Four examples state the purpose of the return to the battle-field, and three use a gerund or gerundive to do so: visundi aut spoliandigratia (Sall. 61.8); ad spolia legenda foedamque etiam hostibus spec-tandam stragem (Liv. 22.51.5); cupido . . . solvendi suprema (Tac. Ann.1.61.1); lustrare oculis concupivit (Tac. Hist. 2.70.1).

(3) All contain verbs of discovery or visual perception: cerneres,repertus est, reperiebant (Sall.); spectandam, invenerunt, apparebat(Liv.); scrutaretur, invenerit (Tac. Ann.); spectato, recognoscere, intueri,

27See Kissel 1979, 105–6; Spaltenstein 1990, 91.



mirari (Tac. Hist.); cernit, agnoscat (Luc.); visu, spectacula, agnovit(Silius).28

(4) Three authors use the verb lustrare, conferring a sense of rit-ual to the scenes: lustrare oculis (Tac. Hist. and Luc. 7.795); lustrabat(Sil. 10.450).

(5) Four examples mention the role of fate or chance in the bat-tle: fors (Liv. 22.51.6); sortem hominum (Tac. Ann. 1.61.1); sors rerum(Tac. Hist. 2.70.3); fortunam . . . cernit (Luc. 7.796).

(6) In three of the descriptions, Livy and Tacitus join pairs ofnouns or adjectives with either coordinating or disjunctive conjunc-tions, asserting a sort of rhetorical control over the chaotic scene: pedi-tes passim equitesque; aut pugna aut fuga (Liv. 22.51.6); disiecta vel ag-gerata; fragmina telorum equorumque artus (Tac. Ann. 1.61.3–4); alienasreliquias an suorum (Tac. Ann. 1.62.1); putres virorum equorumque for-mae (Tac. Hist. 2.70.1).

(7) In some instances innumerable bodies are seen lying about:disiecerat (Sal. 61.3); iacebant tot Romanorum milia (Liv. 22.51.6); ad-iacebant (Tac. Ann. 1.61.4); tot milia insepultorum civium (Tac. Hist.2.70.3); numerat populos (Luc. 7.792);29 facta recensebat (Sil. 10.451).

(8) In three cases, the return to the battlefield serves to unite thesurviving soldiers in purpose: per omnem exercitum (Sall. 61.9); omniexercitu (Tac. Ann. 1.61.1); volgus militum (Tac. Hist. 2.70.3).

We may thus detect among these shared traits a rhetoric of after-math which includes temporal phrases, gerunds, verbs of visual percep-tion, and coordinating conjunctions, allowing an author to construct arepresentation of a violent experience. From these several representa-tions it is possible to draw conclusions about the meaning of such an ex-perience in its cultural context. The cumulative effect of such details inall of these examples is a troubling picture of death, dismemberment,and destruction. Wounded or decomposed bodies scattered about thefield are vivid testimony to the horror and suffering of the battle. In allcases, only the survivors can conduct the tour of the aftermath and re-create the battle based on the position of the remains. While they canlook back on the dangers they themselves have escaped, they must also

28On the ancient rhetorical technique of �ν�ργεια, or vividness ante oculos, seeWoodman 1989, 139–40.

29Note that Caesar actually counts the dead; others number their losses in terms ofthe imprecise, hyperbolic milia.



come to terms with any sense of shame for not having died gloriously aswell.30 And they must also look forward to the new balance of powerprecipitated by the battle,31 to a new social and political order precipi-tated by the war. While they rejoice in their victory, they grieve theirlost comrades.32 The returning soldiers must resolve any feelings ofshame for not having stood fast by their fellow warriors, while familymembers must come to terms with survivors’ guilt. Before the dismem-bered limbs of the soldiers are collected for cremation or burial, after-math bridges the gap between the battle and its effects. It stands be-tween the dismemberment and dissolution of social order and theresolution and reconstruction of society along new terms. We are nowprepared to see how these elements, both rhetorical and cultural, aremanifested in the Thebaid.

AFTERMATH IN THE THEBAID

If the Thebaid is an epic of regret, it is also an epic of aftermath, of grimcircumspection of the consequences of irrationality, passion, ira, andfate.33 Three episodes foreshadow the culminating scene at the begin-ning of book 12. After Tydeus slays forty–nine of the fifty Thebans sentto ambush him, the families of the victims pour out of the gates of thecity to find and mourn their kin. The scene opens with an extended pre-lude to Dawn:

ecce sub occiduas versae iam noctis habenasastrorumque obitus, ubi primum maxima Tethysimpulit Eoo cunctantem Hyperiona ponto . . . (3.33–35)

There beneath the western reins of night, when already the course of thestars had turned, as soon as it was light Tethys had driven forth slow Hy-perion from the eastern sea . . .

30For the republican attitude of disgrace in regard to survivors of defeat see Ro-senstein 1990, 119–29.

31Vitellius, for example, is ignorant of the consequences of the battle: laetus ultroet tam propinquae sortis ignarus (Tac. Hist. 2.70).

32E.g., Sall. 61.9.33On madness in the Thebaid see Hershkowitz 1995 and 1998, 247–301; on ira see

Fantham 1997.



Dawn sheds first light on Maeon, the sole survivor of the wrath of Ty-deus, who brings word of the massacre to the Thebans and then com-mits suicide. Thereupon the wives and children of the victims abandonthe city to behold the carnage for themselves:

sic ore miserrimus unoexoritur fragor, aspectuque accensa cruentoturba furit. (3.123–25)

Thus with one voice a most wretched cry rises up, and when they see thebloody sight, a hot frenzy rages.

Once they reach the battlefield, they find helmets and corpses, and inpreparation for burial they attempt to reassemble dismembered limbsto torsos and to reattach severed heads to shoulders.34 The descriptionof Ide, the mother of twin sons killed that night, follows in lines 134–68and foreshadows Oedipus’ “inspection” of his dead sons at 11.580–633.35 As each discovers her son, all of the citizens lament (3.169–70). Apyre is built before which Aletes, in his wise old age, delivers a eulogy,noteworthy, says Statius, for its outspoken content in the presence ofthe tyrant Eteocles.36 Thus in this scene of aftermath Statius takes ad-vantage of an opportunity to comment on tyranny.

34Scrutantur galeas frigentum inventaque monstrantcorpora, prociduae super externosque suosque.hae pressant in tabe comas, hae lumina signantvulneraque alta rigant lacrimis, pars spicula dextranequiquam parcente trahunt, pars molliter aptantbracchia trunca loco et cervicibus ora reponunt. (3.127–32)

35Vessey (1973, 124–27) compares the deaths of the sons of Ide and Jocasta. SeeHenderson 1991, 56, 65 n. 37; 1998, 240–43, on women’s searching for corpses of lovedones in the aftermath. Modern parallels are not difficult to find; cf. the grisly descriptionof the aftermath of an American Civil War battle at Chickamauga (Bierce 1970, 53–58),or the eyewitness account of the Battle of the Alma, complete with aftermath (Hamley1968, 33–37).

36Haec senior, multumque nefas Eteoclis acervat / crudelem infandumque vocanspoenasque daturum. / unde ea libertas? (3.214–16). Maeon’s speech (3.59–87) also con-demns tyranny, in much the same manner as Tacitus’ Cremutius Cordus (Ann. 4.34–35)—proof again that the Thebaid has underlying political concerns (contra Vessey 1973). SeeAhl 1986; Dominik 1989; Henderson 1993, esp. 166, and 1998, 220. On the tradition oflament see Alexiou 1974, 10–14, 122–28; on its oppositional power see Holst–Wahrhaft1992.



In book 5 Hypsipyle tells the Argives the story of the women ofLemnos, who by night massacred the men of the island. In her discus-sion of this episode, Nugent successfully redeems the episode from thecharges of superfluity and digression and convincingly demonstrates itsfundamental relationship to the rest of the Thebaid. She begins with animplicit analogy between the storyteller Hypsipyle and the poet Statius.She draws parallels between certain scenes in the Aeneid and the Lem-nian narrative in order to argue that the ambiguous nature of the rela-tionship between Hypsipyle and her father is symptomatic of Statius’equivocal relationship to his epic predecessor Vergil.37 We shall returnbelow (“Aftermath and the Orphic Gaze”) to this problem and the po-et’s anxiety of influence, especially as manifested in 12.816–17. Our con-cern here, however, is the presence of certain rhetorical indicators of anaftermath narrative, and how the Lemnian aftermath functions withinthe larger framework of Statius’ epic.

After the women commit their horrible crime, dawn rises over anew day:

exoritur pudibunda dies, caelumque retexensaversum Lemno iubar et declinia Titanopposita iuga nube refert. patuere furoresnocturni. (5.296–99)

A shameful day rises. The Sun, exposing the sky and its radiance to Lem-nos, brings his team back, its course diverted from behind a screen ofcloud. The night’s madness lay plain.38

Daylight forces the women to see for themselves their murdered fami-lies; Venus and Furor depart from Lemnos, leaving the wives and moth-ers to deal with the aftermath of their actions: impia terrae / infodiuntscelera aut festinis ignibus urunt (5.300–301), “Their wicked crimes theyburied in the ground or burnt on hurried pyres.” In order to maintainthe illusion of complicity, Hypsipyle must also feign a burial for her res-cued father.39 The slaughter at Lemnos may be parallel to the sack of

37Nugent 1996. See also Brown 1994, esp. 112–23 on Hypsipyle as narrator.38Note the affinity with Lucan 7.787; dies occupies a similar metrical position (be-

fore a caesura), and both lines end with a form of the verb retexo.39Nugent (1996, 55) interrogates the fate of Thaos and concludes that his absence

from the island, from the mass funerals, and from the text gives Hypsipyle’s story itsimpetus.



Thebes in structure, incident, and imagery, but Hypsipyle’s mock burialof her father is so empty and so contrary to the purpose of the ritualthat it is a pointed commentary on the final, essential theme of the The-ban legend, the refusal of burial by Creon.40 Hypsipyle describes thesemock rites:

ipsa quoque arcanis tecti in penetralibus altomolior igne pyram, sceptrum super armaque patrisinicio et notas regum velamina vestesac prope maesta rogum confusis ignibus astoense cruentato, fraudemque et inania bustaplango metu, si forte premant. . . . (5.313–18)

And I myself deep in the hidden recesses of the house build the pyre,onto which I toss the scepter and weapons of my father, as well as the fa-miliar garments of royalty, and sadly I stand near the pyre with its min-gling flames and bloodied sword, and I weep at the dissimulation and thecenotaph in fear if perchance they should press me.41

In all the scenes of aftermath we have examined thus far, this is theonly instance culminating in a mock burial. Proper burial is always thefirst, most pressing concern of the survivors. It is the duty of the de-feated as well as the victorious generals, and it is surely the duty of thegrieving family. But here it is merely the appearance of a proper burialwhich Hypsipyle both desires—and requires—for her safety and pres-ervation. According to Vessey, “Hypsipyle’s action also anticipates thefuneral of Opheltes in book 6 and the pietas of Argia and Antigone in12.”42 But unlike the burial of the victims of Tydeus in book 3, and un-like the burial of the other Lemnian men, Hypsipyle’s mock burial ofher father is startling because it stands in stark contrast to the actions ofArgia and Antigone. Unlike the other women of Lemnos, Hypsipylehas not murdered her father; unlike Argia and Antigone, she is not for-bidden to bury him. Polynices’ wife and sister fear lest they be caughtperforming rites for their kin; Thoas’ daughter fears lest she is caught

40A similar argument is made by Bonds (1985) on two battle scenes in the The-baid. On the irony of the episode see Ahl 1986, 2886–88. Hannibal conducts a vain burialfor the consul, stripped of all the trappings: no wife, no sons, no kinsmen, no customaryancestral masks (Sil. 10.565–68).

41On the convoluted syntax of this passage see Nugent 1996, 65.42Vessey 1970, 47.



not performing funeral rites. Hypsipyle’s is a different kind of pietasaltogether.

Finally, after the duel between Eteocles and Polynices, the first toinspect the slain is, ironically, their blind father, Oedipus. He comesforth profundis . . . tenebris (11.580–81); no daylight illuminates the bat-tlefield for him. Antigone must lead him to the bodies through a pathlittered with weapons and chariots piled high: impediunt iter implicitos-que morantur / arma, viri, currus (11.596–97).43 Although Oedipus la-ments their death in his memorable speech (605–26), still he will notcomplete their obsequies. He stands on the battlefield, poised betweenthe murder of his sons, whose fratricide has ruined Thebes, and the ad-vent of Theseus, who will restore order to the community. Oedipus’blindness symbolizes ambivalence throughout the epic; his darkness ap-proximates death, and yet he is alive. Like the dead whom he “in-spects,” Oedipus too hovers in a no–man’s land.44

The most elaborate aftermath in the Thebaid, 12.1–59, opens witha four–line description of Dawn, which in both length and complexitysurpasses any of the temporal phrases in the examples of Sallust, Livy,Tacitus, Lucan, or Silius cited above:

nondum cuncta polo vigil inclinaverat astraortus et instantem cornu tenuiore videbatluna diem, trepidas ubi iam Tithonia nubesdiscutit ac reduci magnum parat aethera Phoebo. (12.1–4)

Not yet had wakeful dawn sloped every star from heaven, and the moonwith failing horn still watched the approach of day, when from the East,dispelling now the trembling shades of night, Aurora rose, preparing thevast sky to greet the Sun’s return.

The battlefield is so vast that the Thebans take three days to clean it up:tertius Aurorae pugnabat Lucifer (12.50). The survivors stand amidst theruin in a no–man’s land between war and peace. Wandering among thedismembered corpses, they are at pains to re–member themselves, theirlives, the savage war: quamvis tunc otia tandem / et primus post bellasopor, tamen aegra quietem / pax fugat et saevi meminit victoria belli(12.6–8). Statius likens them to storm–tossed sailors or to doves pro-tecting their young from the threat of a snake. With three instances of

43Note the epic grandeur of line 11.597: arma viri . . .44See Moreland 1975, esp. 20; Feeney 1991, 360.



anaphora—hi tela, hi corpora (12.24), pars currus deflent . . . pars osculafigunt (12.26–27), and qui iusta ferant, qui funera ducant (12.34)—Sta-tius stitches together a tapestry depicting dismemberment and after-math. Victims of fortune (lusit fortuna parumper, 12.35), they weep andbuild a pyre for their men, performing funeral rites for the Thebans butnot the Argives. Statius devotes more lines to this aftermath than hispredecessors; he describes the mangled corpses in more detail. And hemakes it even more conspicuous by virtue of its position at the very be-ginning of book 12. In short, he outstrips his models.

AFTERMATH AND THE ORPHIC GAZE: 12.810–19

We have seen how Statius employs the topos of aftermath throughoutthe Thebaid. It remains for us to explore how the end of the epic, andthe sphragis in particular, represents a sort of aftermath for the poet.Implicit in the definition of aftermath is the act of looking (recall theprevalence of verbs of visual perception in our list above). Survivors be-hold human corpses, often dismembered, still in a defiled state, beforethey are collected, washed, and prepared for burial. The vista is un-clean, impure; in this sense it is forbidden. But it is also a necessary partof the process of purification.45 Except for tyrants, the survivors do notrevel or rejoice in what they see; rather in looking for and in recogniz-ing their dead, they discharge their public duties and come to termswith their private losses. Thus looking upon a scene of aftermath canhave salutary effects for both the individual and the community atlarge. But there are those who glut themselves with the gore of ene-mies, feasting their eyes upon the mangled corpses of their victims, gaz-ing lustfully upon the dismembered bodies and severed limbs of thedead. This gross, abhorrent proclivity of tyrants is soundly condemnedin the ancient literature.46

There is another type of gaze, a third way in which a dead body isseen, which is neither the tyrannical, macabre obsession with corpsesnor the restorative administration of the final, healing act of burial. Thegaze of Orpheus upon Eurydice on the ascent from the Underworldfalls between the two, for Orpheus does not intend to bury his wife.Rather, his obsessive love for her compels him to turn around and gaze

45See above, note 4.46Cf. Leigh 1996.



upon her as she hovers between life and death. Vergil gives prominenceto this fateful glance in his version of the myth at the end of the Geor-gics.47 Orpheus persuades Persephone to grant an extraordinary re-quest: the return of Eurydice from Hades. He is permitted to bring herback, provided he does not look upon her until they reach the land ofthe living. But on the ascent, he is seized by an uncontrollable passionto look at her (4.488), and stopping on the very threshold of light—in a“no–man’s land” between the upper and lower worlds—he looks back:

iamque pedem referens casus evaserat omnis,redditaque Eurydice superas veniebat ad auraspone sequens (namque hanc dederat Proserpina legem),cum subita incautum dementia cepit amantem,ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere Manes:restitit, Eurydicenque suam iam luce sub ipsaimmemor heu! victusque animi respexit. (4.485–91)

And now retracing his footstep he avoids every pitfall, and Eurydice re-gained continues toward the upper world, following behind (for Perseph-one gave this injunction), when suddenly a madness seized the heedlesslover, indeed, a madness to be forgiven, if the Shades know how to for-give. He turned around, and upon his own dear Eurydice there on thevery threshold of light, unmindful, alas and defeated in his purpose, hegazed.

He turns to look upon the object of his desire, upon that which inspireshis song. As soon as he sees her, he loses her forever. But by lookingback at her he also gives her voice. For it is only after she is irretriev-ably lost that she is able to speak for herself in Vergil’s poem: she criesout to Orpheus (4.494–98) and then vanishes like incense: dixit et exoculis subito, ceu fumus in auras / commixtus tenuis, fugit diversa (499–500). His music may charm, but it cannot conquer. In that backwardglance his deepest loss is felt all over again (rapta bis coniuge, 504) andhis greatest fear is realized. In the silence, he is powerless in the face ofdeath: quae numina voce moveret? (505).

The Thracian bard, the son of Oeagrus, is the “paradigmaticpoet.”48 Although the myth is primarily a love story, it becomes for

47According to Heath (1994, 193), although “there is no unambiguous evidence forthe turning tabu before Virgil . . . the tabu played a central role in the tale from early on.”

48Perkell 1989, 80.



Vergil, and later for Ovid, a story about the failure of artistic represen-tation. The relationship between Orpheus and Eurydice is emblematicof the relationship between the poet and his oeuvre. Earlier versions ofthe Orpheus myth emphasized the creative, thaumaturgic powers of thepoet;49 but in the backward glance Vergil crystallizes failure, defeat, andloss that a poet also experiences.50

At the beginning of book 12, in the aftermath of the final battlebefore the gates of Thebes, Statius reshapes the myth of Orpheus andEurydice in the meeting of Polynices and his wife, Argia. After the duelbetween the brothers, the Argive women come to Thebes to collect thedead. As Argia stands on the blood–soaked battlefield before the wallsof Thebes, a vision of Polynices comes to her:

ipse etiam ante oculos omni manifestus in actununc hospes miserae, primas nunc sponsus ad aras,nunc mitis coniunx, nunc iam sub casside torvamaestus in amplexu multumque a limine summorespiciens: sed nulla animo versatur imagocrebrior Aonii quam quae de sanguine campinuda venit poscitque rogos. (12.187–93)

For he himself was manifest before her eyes in every action, now guestfor the poor girl, now betrothed before the altars, now gentle spouse, nowwearing a grim helmet, sad in embrace and often looking back (respici-ens) from the most distant threshold. But no image turned her attentionmore keenly than of him returning stripped from the bloody Theban bat-tlefield and demanding burial.51

Argia, like Orpheus, comes to rescue her spouse. Polynices, like Euryd-ice, appears as a wraith, hovering between the reality of death and the

49Segal (1989, 10–14) demonstrates how throughout Greek literature, the vocabu-lary for the appeal of poetry draws a parallel between the fascinating power of languageand the seductive power of love. To this line of thought, I adduce the etymological confu-sion of the English words “glamour” and “grammar,” because of the popular associationof literary erudition with delusive or alluring charm; see OED s.v. grammar.

50For a summary of the range of interpretations of the end of the Georgics seeGriffin 1979, esp. 61; Batstone 1997, 126–29; for a more optimistic view than the one Iadopt here see Putnam 1979, esp. 318: “As we draw near the end of the Georgics, Virgiloffers us more solace.”

51This is not the first time Polynices turns back to Argia; cf. 4.91 (catalogue offorces), respicit Argian. See Henderson 1991, 50–51, 78 n. 186, on the theme of repetitionin the Thebaid. On the cultural significance of respicere see Bettini 1991, 123.



faint hope of life. But a more interesting comparison obtains betweenOrpheus and Polynices. Both stand on the threshold, both cast a fatefulbackward glance. Both are unable to accomplish their goals. And bothwives are helpless as their husbands do so.

This scene draws on a rich tradition of ghostly apparitions in epic,beginning with the specter of Patroclus who haunts Achilles in a dream,demanding burial (Il. 23.69–101). There for the first time we see themetaphor of the ghost vanishing like smoke (23.100).52 The ghost ofAnchises appears to Aeneas in a dream, counseling him to follow theadvice of Nautes and consult the Sibyl at Cumae. Once his message isdelivered, he too vanishes ceu fumus in auras (Aen. 5.740).53 The ghostof Julia troubles the sleep of Pompey in Lucan’s epic (3.8–35), and the ghost of Laius incites Eteocles to action and to a large extent impelsthe course of the entire Thebaid (2.102–19). Most touching, however,are the three epic wraiths who thrice evade the loving embrace of theliving: Creusa (Aen. 2.791–94), Dido (6.700–702), and the mother ofOdysseus (Od. 11.204–8).54 But of all the ghosts, Eurydice is the mostcompelling figure in this analysis, because of her association with po-etry. She alone is the wife of a poet, she alone inspires song; she aloneembodies the artistic endeavor. In the meeting of Argia and the ghostof Polynices, Statius invokes a rich intertextual tradition, engaging eachof these individual prior contexts while simultaneously working towardthe unique ending of his own poem.55 Argia and Polynices may recallPatroclus and Achilles, Dido and Aeneas, Julia and Pompey, but as Sta-tius approaches the end of his epic, the retrospection of Polynices alsosuggests Orpheus and Eurydice.56

Now that the heroes Polynices and Eteocles are dead, the poethas reached the limes carminis, the line drawn at the beginning of the

52Cf. P., Phaed. 70a.53Cf. Lucr. 3.456, ceu fumus in altas aeris auras; Ov. Met. 14.824–25, corpus mortale

per auras / dilapsum tenues (of Romulus); Sil. 10.577, aetherias anima exultans evasit inauras (of the consul Paulus).

54Feeney (1990, 173) sees the broken exchange between Orpheus and Eurydice asemblematic of “the same sense of incapacity before an insistent pressure of words” thatAeneas experiences with his mother (1.406–8), his wife (2.789–91), and his father (5.722).

55Cf. Hinds 1998, 34.56Note the similarities in sound and in grammatical structure between the ends of

the hexameters G. 4.486 (ad auras) and Theb. 12.188 (ad aras), referring to those caughtbetween the worlds of the living and the dead.



epic in line 1.16.57 The poem has reached its ostensible conclusion; butas Roberts has pointed out, narrative “always raises the possibility thatwe will insist on knowing more.”58 So Orpheus knows that Eurydice isdead, and yet he is filled with a desire to look back and see for himself.In other words, there is a deep–seated need for aftermath, for an end-ing even beyond death. As a cultural phenomenon, aftermath allowssurvivors to heal and recollect themselves. As a poetic phenomenon, af-termath allows the poet to look back, to cast an Orphic gaze at his cre-ation, at the object of his desire. The need for this retrospection is cap-tured in the scene between Argia and Polynices, as his image looksback, a limine summo / respiciens. The word order emphasizes this: Sta-tius places a limine summo at the end (the limit) of the hexameter; re-spiciens at the beginning of the line demands retrospection.59

Polynices is not the only character in the epic who looks over hisshoulder. At the end of book 7, the first of the Seven against Thebes tofall in battle is the seer Amphiaraus. Apollo rescues him from crueldeath and sends him to the Underworld, still living. A fissure opens inthe earth, and the prophet is swallowed and disappears into the yawn-ing chasm:

illum ingens haurit specus et transire parantesmergit equos; non arma manu, non frena remisit:sicut erat, rectos defert in Tartara currusrespexitque cadens caelum campumque coireingemuit . . . (7.818–22)

The huge chasm swallows him and drowns the horses as they try to cross;he does not let go of the weapons or the reins; just as he was, so he drovehis chariot straight into Tartarus, and he looked back (respexit) at heavenas he was falling, and he lamented that the field was closing over . . .

The prophet and the poet are both devotees of Apollo, and as Hender-son remarks, “Statius bonds with Amphiaraus as his hypostasis.”60 By

57See Braund 1996, 16 and n. 43. See Heinrich 1996, 166, and 1999, 168–71, on theway the Thebaid transgresses its own narrative parameters.

58Roberts 1997, 254, 255.59Thomas (1988, II 230) notes the climactic placement of respexit at Georgics 4.491

as the last word of the sentence, “which drives home the enormity of Orpheus’ error.” Itis framed by the compound restitit, first word of line 490.

60On the parallels between the vates figure and the poet Lucan see O’Higgins1988; Masters 1992, 133–41. Henderson (1991, 69 n. 73) extends the argument to Statius.



looking back, Amphiaraus, Orpheus, and the ghost of Polynices estab-lish contact between the living and the dead. These liminal figures con-nect the past surveyed and the future as yet uncertain. Like the ghost ofPolynices there on the distant horizon, like Orpheus luce sub ipsa, likeAmphiaraus on the brink of Tartarus, Statius too pauses to re–view, tolook again. A backward glance implies the need for resolution: the war-rior is not yet buried, the epic is still incomplete. This anxiety of incom-pleteness, harnessed in the envoi, gives the last ten lines of the poemtheir compelling pathos.

At times Statius startles the reader, to varying degrees, with thesound of his own voice in the poem. Apostrophes and inclusive first–person plural pronouns bridge the distance between author and audi-ence. But the way he brings closure to the epic is a tour de force of di-rect address to his own poem.61 Let us turn at last to these concludinglines:

durabisne procul dominoque legere supersteso mihi bissenos multum vigilata per annosThebai? iam certe praesens tibi Fama benignumstravit iter coepitque novam monstrare futuris.iam te magnanimus dignatur noscere Caesar,Itala iam studio discit memoratque iuventus.vive, precor; nec tu divinam Aeneida tempta,sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora.mox, tibi si quis adhuc praetendit nubila livor,occidet, et meriti post me referentur honores. (12.810–19)

Will you endure far from now, and will you survive your master and beread, my Thebaid, for whom I kept vigil for twelve years? Surely nowcurrent fame paves a kindly path for you and begins to show you anew tofuture generations. Already great–hearted Caesar considers it worthwhileto become acquainted with you, already Italian youth learns and memo-rizes you with eagerness. Live, I pray; do not essay the divine Aeneid, butfollow at a distance and always worship its footsteps. Soon, if any envyyet clouds you, it will pass, and honors earned will be granted after me.

In addition to the many closural devices that Statius employs at the endof the Thebaid (truce, 12.782–96; laments, 797–807; ship of poetry re-turns to port, 808–9),62 the poet commands his work: vive, precor nec

61Hardie 1997, 156–58.62See Braund 1996, 4–8.



tu divinam Aeneida tempta, / sed longe sequere et vestigia semper adora(816–17). Malamud has noted in passing this “metaphorical likening ofthe Thebaid to Eurydice and Creusa, following the Aeneid at a danger-ous distance.”63 I now wish to tease out all of the implications of thiselegant yet modest suggestion and to explore more fully the implicitcomparison between the Thebaid and Eurydice on the one hand, andthe Aeneid and Orpheus on the other. Surely it is not coincidental thatStatius compares his poem to the mythological character whose fateVergil so dramatically recasts at the end of the Georgics. Elsewhere theThebaid must confess to an often excessive, mannered expansion of itsVergilian models.64 In the command to follow in the footsteps of theAeneid, Statius conjures a momentary materialization of this monumen-tal epic. But the brevity of the allusion to the myth of Orpheus at 816–17 is mimetic of the fleeting glimpse of Eurydice which in fact provesOrpheus’ undoing. Clearly, there is more here than meets the eye.

It is easy enough to see the Thebaid following in the footsteps ofits great predecessor. The metaphor, however, has broader ramificationsthan simple praise for the Augustan poet. Rather than (or, in additionto) disparaging his own poem, in this seemingly self–effacing statementof “secondariness,”65 Statius simultaneously makes a critical comment on the Aeneid. If Orpheus is a tragic figure “balanced precariously be-tween the creative and the self–destructive capacity of language,”66

then, in corresponding to the metaphor as closely as possible, the Aeneidmust also embody creative and self–destructive capacities. In lookingback over twelve years (12.811), Statius casts a final glance at his poemand at last relinquishes his work. But in the same moment that theThebaid is granted autonomy, it too, in keeping with the metaphor, van-ishes “like smoke mingling with thin air” (G. 4.499–500). Uncertaintyabout the poem’s future is tinted with fear of its utter disappearance.

While the Orpheus of the Georgics embodies the positive, Apol-lonian attributes of poetry, and so of civilization, life, fertility, harmony,and love, Vergil also imbues him with such equally disturbing qualitiesas futility, loss, lack of self–control (4.488), and violent death (4.520–

63Malamud 1995, 27. The connection between 12.816–17 and the Georgics is everybit as strong as the allusion to the Aeneid, which has already been treated by Nugent(1996, 70–71).

64Williams 1986; cf. Henderson 1991, 40, on Statius’ “mastery of excess.”65Hinds 1998, 91–96; cf. Feeney 1991, 338–40; Nugent 1996, 71.66Segal 1989, 34.



27).67 So by casting the Aeneid in the role of Orpheus, Statius assigns to the poem all of the dualities inherent in that figure. For all that theAeneid teaches of civilization, fertility, harmony, and love, it must alsoby analogy tell of futility, loss, lack of self–control, and violent death. Itssuccess is haunted by failure. Thus the compliment (12.816–17) is tem-pered; neither is it the hollow insincerity or abject adulation often as-sociated with the Domitianic age, nor is it solely an admission of po-etic inferiority. Statius does not reshape Vergil’s myth, like Ovid (Met.10.1–85), or modernize it, like Rilke (Sonnets to Orpheus). Rather, thetotalizing capacity of Vergil’s myth, to express both the positive and the negative aspects of poetry, allows Statius to criticize the very thingwhich he holds up as exemplary.68 Vergil chose to end the Georgics withthe myth of Orpheus;69 likewise Statius leaves the Thebaid with a refer-ence to Orpheus. As both poets approach the terminus of their labor,both, like their mythical forebear, look back upon the objects of theirdesire and effort for so many years with a sense of regret and loss. Byevoking the final episode of the Georgics in his sphragis, Statius re-inforces the many closural elements in Thebaid 12. He carves out aspace for himself in the epic tradition,70 while at the same time he wres-tles with any poet’s Orphic fear at the end of his song: silence.71

CONCLUSION

The aftermath of a battle stands between the chaotic forces of war andthe resolution of peace; the battlefield lies between the pollution of warand the purification of funeral rites. Indeed, before book 12 the story

67See Segal 1989, 9; Thomas 1988, II 230: “Orpheus’ failure is emotional, a loss ofcontrol caused by amor.”

68Cf. Newlands 1995, 37 n. 27: “Ovid conducts a dialogue with Vergil that is one ofdissent as well as support.” Henderson 1991, 40: “Statius’ most counter–Virgilian momentis, precisely, his overt act of deference to Virgil”; see also Henderson 1998, 217, 251.

69This statement assumes the position of Thomas (1988, I 15–16) that Vergil wasnot compelled to change the end of the poem iubente Augusto (Serv. ad G. 4.1).

70Nugent 1996, 71: “That very fluency in the inherited language of epic enables thepoet to say new things.”

71This anxiety is captured in the modern lyric poetry of, e.g., T. S. Eliot’s WasteLand or Ash Wednesday (“Because these wings are no longer wings to fly / But merelyvans to beat the air”), and Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus and Duino Elegies.



had already ended with the deaths of Polynices and Eteocles; but deathmust be purified by ritual. Only through funeral rites is the natural pro-cess of death acculturated and brought into the human sphere; funeralrites civilize the violence of death on the battlefield and give it purpose.Only through the proper burial rites is death mastered. Once purified,the death and destruction of war can deliver the ideological message ofthe new social and political order. So in book 12, Theseus contrasts withthe tyrant Creon, and the death of the brothers is transformed into thesymbolic death of tyranny, foreshadowed by the speeches of Maeon andAletes in book 3. Furthermore, the mourning which follows the after-math heralds the end of the warriors’ lives and the beginning of theirafterlives. According to Redfield, “Formal laments do not speak of thedead man as he was in life; rather they speak of how things are nowthat he is gone . . . mourning is not so much the memory of the past asthe definition of the new situation, mourning looks forward.”72 By end-ing, or pre–ending, with the conceit that he could not recount thelamentations of the women (12.797–807), Statius directs the poem for-ward into the future.

I suggest that lines 12.810–19 serve a poetic purpose analogous tothe cultural purpose of aftermath narratives. They stand in a no–man’sland, between the act of writing and the act of reading; between pro-duction and publication, between author and audience. In these linesthe author surveys the epic, a limine summo / respiciens and establishescontact with the future readers of his work. He has survived, no meanfeat for a poet under tyranny.73 He looks back upon its production, asyet unaware of what the future will bring as a result of his work. Likethe other aftermath narratives, the sphragis is a nexus of past (the pasttwelve years), present (praesens Fama, 812; iam . . . iam), and future(durabis, superstes, futuris, mox, occidet, referentur). It is set apart from the rest of the narrative temporally. Dawn finally rises, after twelve longyears of night: bissenos multum vigilata per annos. Fama scatters thework far and wide; strewn across Italy, it is re–membered and taken upby all sorts of readers, from the emperor himself, to unnamed school-children. And then, as if to purify the work, a prayer: “live!” (vive pre-

72Redfield 1994, 180.73Coleman 1986, esp. 3112, on the Thebaid. See Syme 1983 on the vicissitudes of

Domitian’s reign.



cor). In pausing to look back (respiciens) at his epic, he, like Orpheus,empowers his feminine Thebais to speak.74

Through the redeeming advent of Theseus, Thebes is purified.Through funeral rites the survivors purify the slain and themselves.And through narrative the author is purified, that is, brought to a rest-ing place of order and reason.75 As the hesitant Thebans must surveythe results of their impius furor, so the poet surveys the results of Pie-rius menti calor (1.3).76 By considering other aftermath narratives inLatin literature, we see that Statius was not alone in his endeavor tomake the pain and suffering of war’s bitter aftermath the starting pointfor healing, recollection, and remembrance. In the epilogue to the The-baid he invites the reader to stand on the killing field with him,77 to sur-vey the damage, to regret, to lament. So leben wir und nehmen immerAbschied—“so we live and ever take our leave.” There is no goingback. In the dawn of the aftermath Statius leaves it to the reader to de-cide how the future will begin.78

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

e–mail: [email protected]

74Cf. Juv. 7.82–83, carmen amicae / Thebaidos, laetam cum fecit Statius urbem. OnJuvenal’s metaphor of Statius as pimp see Anderson 1982, 135–36. Nugent (1996, 46 n. 4)provides bibliography on the role and authority of women’s speech in the Thebaid. Onthe significance of the gender of the epic for the ending of the poem see Malamud 1995,25: “The women in the text are dismissed, while the text itself becomes a Woman.” Seealso Dietrich (forthcoming). On the gendered relationship between poet and poetry seeHenderson 1989, 54.

75Redfield 1994, 161: “In narrative art the form is achieved gradually . . . impurityhas been met and overcome by the power of formal art.”

76For Hershkowitz (1995, 63), “Furor and the furious poetics necessary to writeabout it, which have driven the Thebaid, have now exhausted it.” See also Hershkowitz1998, 270.

77“Killing fields” is Henderson’s refrain: see 1991, 55; 1993, 175; 1998, 214.78Thanks to Kathy Coleman for organizing the 1997 Statius Workshop at Trinity

College, Dublin, and to everyone in that stalwart audience for their keen comments andkind encouragement of this, the penultimate essay presented there. Special thanks to theeditor and the anonymous readers for AJP, and to A. Wolpert: longi tu sol[us] laboris /consci[us] (Silv. 3.5.35–36).



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