Statius and His Renaissance Readers

This chapter shows that Statius’ renascence from the discovery of his Silvae in 1417 allows fifteenth-century Neapolitan poets to escape from the shadow of Virgil and follow Statius’ model of lighter, occasional poetry set in the picturesque and culturally stimulating landscape of Campania. Statius’ pride in his native Campania so delights Neapolitan humanists that the poet Panormita assembles an anthology of Statius’ Laudes Neapolitanae and composes a dedication for a new statue of the Flavian poet. Poets such as Panormita and Pontano develop in their own poetic work points of contact with Statius’ Silvae, including the beneficent influence of Campania’s pastoral landscape and mild climate on their poetic output. Pontano’s protégé, Sannazaro, would later compile a lexical and metrical study of Statius whose Silvae would influence both the style and content of Sannazaro’s own ‘villa’ poems.

Quam Romanus honos et Graia licentia miscent

This chapter discusses Statius’ celebration of the beauty and serenity of Campania felix in contrast with Rome in Silv. 3.5. It demonstrates how the poet slyly enhances his assurances to his wife that their cultivated but modest daughter will find a more suitable husband in Naples by a series of witty intertextual allusions to Ovid’s Ars Amatoria to contrast Neapolitan refinement with the lascivious pleasures of the Roman theatre and Circus Maximus. The cultural fusion of Naples merges harmoniously with the refined complexity of Flavian poetry. A network of ingenious intertextual allusion draws together Virgil’s narrative of Hercules entering Evander’s humble cottage and Statius’ Hercules who accepts modest hospitality, but appreciates the opulent temple built by Pollius (Silv. 3.1).

Semirutos … de pulvere vultus

This chapter interprets the impact of the eruption of Vesuvius through the perspective of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as it seeks to investigate not only references to recognized symptoms of trauma, such as insomnia for instance, but also the recurrence of Statius’ lexical choices of semirutus, obrutus, insanus, vesanus, vocabulary which is favoured by the Neronian and Flavian writers to describe natural cataclysmic disasters. As the chapter concludes, Vesuvius undoubtedly represents an unfathomable catastrophe; at the same time, however, the poet wants to underscore rebirth and rebuilding in his favourite region of Campania after the eruption of the destructive volcano.

Campania and the Punica

This chapter defines the geographical limits of Roman Campania before engaging with the poetic blend, symbolism, and prolepsis with which Silius constructs his fictional and mythological digressions and his conjunctions of people and places. The confrontation of his protagonists, Scipio and Hannibal, is anticipated first in Hannibal’s visit to the temple in Liternum, prominently adorned with images of Roman victory in the First Punic War, and secondly by Scipio’s charismatic leadership of Italian contingents from remote parts of Campania. The contrast of the epic’s protagonists continues against the backdrop of Campania to which Hannibal returns as the triumphant victor of Cannae in Book 11. The geography of Campania is again interwoven into Silius’ epic narrative, for Capua’s treacherous defection will receive stern retribution at the end of the Campanian sequence in Book 13.

Through the Past to the Future of Naples

This chapter re-examines a neglected textual conjecture in Silv. 4.8 (semina for lumina in line 15) and offers a further conjecture (pectora for lumina in 17). This poem is presented as both civic and personal, a celebration of the birth of Pollius Felix’ grandson which simultaneously applauds the generosity of an illustrious family in contributing descendants to grace the Neapolitan citizen community. The intimacy of Statius’ poem for his patron is illustrated by the citing of a possible Propertian intertext, which enhances the lustre of Menecrates’ two boys and the charm of his baby girl through their resemblance to the Dioscuri and their little sister, Helen. The civic resonance of the poem is resumed in Statius’ closural prayer addressed to the guardian gods of the city for the well-being of the family.

Laudabo digne non satis tamen Baias

This chapter analyses the diversity of themes which Martial ‘epigrammatizes’ in his portrayal of Baiae and Campania, giving prominence to epigrams on wine, its use and abuse (1.18), and scandalous, tragic, and miraculous narratives, dramatized, occasionally, with literary or historical allusion and intertext. As he praises or mocks the country estates surrounding Baiae, Martial explores contemporary issues and compliments personal friends. A cycle of seven poems devoted to Silius and his Punica begins by comparing their disparate genres, inviting the poet-politician to surrender himself to the cultural temptations of Baiae, in the manner of his own Hannibal seduced by the music and sympotic delights of Capua (4.14). The wit, scope, and density of Martial’s literary allusions within this cycle extends beyond Silius himself to his cult of Virgil’s tomb in a witty cluster of epigrams from Book 11 where the theme of poetic emulation takes on a priapic slant.

The Other Campanian Volcano

This chapter surveys the literary representation of Ischia’s volcano, Inarime, which Valerius Flaccus pairs in his Argonautica with Mount Vesuvius in a striking simile describing the violence of battle at Cyzicus (V. Fl. 3.208–9). The imagery of gigantomachy infiltrates Inarime’s diverse reappearances in all three Flavian epics, accentuating a contrast with Statius’ description of the tranquil view of Ischia across the Bay of Naples from the villa of Pollius Felix (Silv. 2.2.75), which in turn provides a glimpse of pastoral serenity likely to inspire in Statius’ Flavian and modern reader-audiences’ reflections on Inarime’s well-hidden (but all too apparent) dangers.

Campania in the Flavian Poets’ Imagination

This introductory chapter begins with an overview of the representation of Campania, a region noted for its fertility and volcanic landscape, in Latin literature before the period of the Flavian emperors, Vespasian and his sons Titus and Domitian. The chapter also provides an overview of the portrayal of the region by the Flavian authors examined in this volume. For these writers, in particular, who include Martial, Silius Italicus, Statius, and Valerius Flaccus, Campania becomes a locus for literary inspiration as well as geographical disaster. Whilst these poets remain mindful of the strong tradition of Greek culture in the region, they recreate an image of Campania which reflects their contemporary values and anxieties.

Silius’ Cumae and Its Augustan Predecessors

Hannibal’s Capuan feast, modelled on Dido’s banquet for Aeneas, is the starting point for this chapter’s exploration of Silius’ wide-ranging allusions, in diction and thematic material, to the Augustan poets, Virgil and Ovid. These predominate in the ecphrases which adorn the two songs of cosmology and erotic genealogy chosen by the Cumaean bard, Teuthras, a distinctively Hellenic lyric poet, and in the variants of the Cretan myth engraved on the doors of Apollo’s temple, which also embrace more widely diffuse literary allusions. As Silius engages with the topography of Cumae in Punica 12, his reference to the Carthaginian’s failure to gain access to the ‘gleaming temple’ points not simply to Hannibal as an inversion of Virgil’s Aeneas, but also to the metapoetic hint that the Flavian poet, like Hannibal, falls short of his illustrious model.

Campania at War in Silius Italicus’ Punica

This chapter posits a martial role for Campanian otium and socordia. Beginning with Silius’ description of Hannibal’s struggle through the marshes with Campania in the role of delayer (6.651–2), it suggests that, in blocking his progress, gentle, pastoral Campania joins forces with the old Cunctator, Fabius Maximus, in Punica 7, in retaliation for Hannibal’s devastation of her herds and vineyards. The balance, ingenuity, and proleptic force of Silius’ fictional ecphrases are a key facet of this chapter: whereas Hannibal threatens to obliterate the painted images of defeat on the temple walls at Liternum with scenes of Carthaginian triumph, Scipio is given indications of Roman victory by the Roman and Carthaginian heroes whom he encounters in his Nekyia in Punica 13. Finally, it will be Campanian otium and luxuria, dangerously excessive and grotesquely abused in Capua, that will extinguish Hannibal’s military ambition.