¹ Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Classical Association at Durham in April 2011 and at Manchester in March 2015. I am grateful for suggestions from both audiences. Special thanks go to the anonymous reader at CQ, Bruce Gibson for his eagle eye, and Alison Sharrock and Roy Gibson for reading drafts of this article.

² Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext (Cambridge, 1998), 10Google Scholar.

³ For the dating of Statius’ Thebaid, scholarship tends to rely on Statius’ claim in the envoi that it has taken him twelve years to produce (o mihi bissenos multum uigilata per annos | Thebai? 12.811–12), deducing from the publication year of a.d. 92 that composition must have begun around a.d. 80. Kytzler, B., ‘Beobachtungen zum prooemium der Thebais des Statius’, Hermes 88 (1960), 341–6Google Scholar places the composition of the Thebaid between a.d. 78–90. See also Coleman, K., Statius: Siluae IV (Oxford, 1988), xv–xxGoogle Scholar; Lesueur, R., ‘Claudia et la composition du livre XII de la Thébaïde de Stace’, REL 81 (2003), 190–9Google Scholar; and Ripoll, F., La morale héroïque dans les épopées latines d’époque flavienne: tradition et innovation (Louvain, 1998), 3–5Google Scholar. On the twelve-year composition window for an epic of twelve books as ‘suspiciously neat’, see Lovatt, H., ‘Interplay: Statius and Silius in the games of Punica 16’, in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Brill's Companion to Silius Italicus (Leiden, 2010), 156Google Scholar.

⁴ Scholars widely endorse the dating of the Punica between a.d. 80–98 as suggested by Wistrand, E., Die Chronologie der Punica des Silius Italicus: Beiträge zur Interpretation der flavishen Literatur (Gothenburg, 1956)Google Scholar. Textual evidence in the Punica points to a linear composition: Ripoll, F., ‘Statius and Silius Italicus’, in Dominik, W.G., Newlands, C.E. and Gervais, K. (edd.), Brill's Companion to Statius (Leiden, 2015), 425–43Google Scholar, at 428 n. 15. Ripoll (this note), 428 n. 12 observes that the writing of one book per year could also be inferred for Statius who left his Achilleid unfinished at Book 2. For the view that Silius wrote in a non-chronological way, see Frölich, U. (ed.), Regulus, Archetyp römischer Fides: Das sechste Buch als Schlüssel zu den Punica des Silius Italicus (Tübingen, 2000)Google Scholar.

⁵ Ripoll (n. 4). See also Manuwald, G. and Voigt, A. (edd.), Flavian Epic Interactions (Berlin, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially chapters by Littlewood (279–96), Marks (297–310), Walter (311–26), van der Keur (327–42), Hulls (343–60), Soerink (361–78) and Chaudhuri (379–98), all of which tackle aspects of intertextuality between Statius and Silius Italicus.

⁶ Ripoll (n. 4), 428–30.

⁷ Lovatt (n. 3), 155–78.

⁸ Ripoll (n. 4), 431–4 explicitly takes issue with Lovatt's reading (n. 3), and argues at 428 that ‘it is not clear whether Silius might have attended recitationes of some parts of the Thebaid before its complete publication in 92’, and that ‘no serious evidence points in this direction’. Yet, no evidence points against it either.

⁹ On Statius’ recitations and the need for patronage, see Vessey, D., Statius & the Thebaid (Cambridge, 1973), 40–55Google Scholar. See also Markus, D.D., ‘Performing the book: the recital of epic in first-century c.e. Rome’, ClAnt 19 (2000), 138–79Google Scholar. Juvenal (Sat. 7.82–7) sarcastically alludes to the popularity that Statius gained through his public readings, and claims that they hardly brought him any financial success: sed cum fregit subsellia uersu | esurit, intactam Paridi nisi uendit Agauen (86–7). According to Pliny (Ep. 3.7.5), Silius was very wealthy and held public readings of his own as a dilettante.

¹⁰ Especially given the thriving culture of literary salons at the time, in which Silius participated actively, either as a host or as a lector: cf. Plin. Ep. 3.7, 5.17 and 6.21. See Price, J.J., ‘The provincial historian in Rome’, in Sievers, J. and Lembi, G. (edd.), Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond (Leiden, 2005), 101–20Google Scholar, at 104.

¹¹ Scholarship places the publication date of Martial's Epigrams Book 4 between a.d. December 88/January 89, on which see Soldevila, R.M., Martial, Book IV, A Commentary (Leiden, 2006), 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar with bibliography. As for Book 7, the scholarly consensus places it in December 92; see Vioque, G.G., Martial, Book VII. A Commentary (Leiden, 2002), 4–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Ripoll (n. 4), 431 also notes the implausibility of a full-scale bilateral influence between Statius and Silius, and warns against Lovatt's reading, which essentially consists of looking for ‘the most interesting story’.

¹³ Juvenal's Satire 7.82–7 is a reminder of the Thebaid reaching the height of popularity before it was even finished.

¹⁴ And given the two poets’ acquaintance, what sort of conversations could they have had, if not literary? Silius may not have attended public recitationes, but could easily have hosted private ones in his Campanian villa, and Statius did reside nearby. Ripoll (n. 4), 427 places their encounter in Campania ‘at the latest about 95 c.e., when Silius retired permanently, as Statius used to divide his time between Naples and Rome (cf. Silv. 3.5)’. It seems rather extraordinary that they would not have met much earlier given their involvement on the literary scene, without necessarily speaking of a close relationship.

¹⁵ For similarities between Hannibal and Capaneus, see Ripoll (n. 3), 340–8. For contrasts in their provocative attitude to gods, see Chaudhuri, P., The War with God: Theomachy in Roman Imperial Poetry (Oxford, 2014)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 232, where Capaneus is viewed as a more authentic theomach, while Hannibal is seen to fall short of the paradigm because ‘he offers no real intellectual threat to the divine, as for instance Ovid's theomachs do’. For the multiplicity of Statian models behind Silius’ Hannibal, see Stocks, C., The Roman Hannibal: Remembering the Enemy in Silius Italicus’ Punica (Liverpool, 2014), 73–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ The gaze is ‘intertextual’ in that it is mostly inherited, often encapsulating various models, which can only be disentangled and deconstructed through critical analysis.

¹⁷ Lovatt, H., The Epic Gaze: Vision, Gender and Narrative in Ancient Epic (Cambridge, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ respexit in aethera has strong metapoetic potential: here Capaneus looks back again (re-) as he is about to rehearse his part, and the phrase is significantly wedged between lassa … dextra, where his hand is said to have grown tired (10.839): ‘… lassa respexit in aethera dextra’. The emphasis on Capaneus’ weariness in battle can be taken as a reflexive allusion to his Aeschylean self, tired of repeating these mortal combats that he had previously shunned for an Olympian assault. It is not the first time that Statius alludes to characters’ self-awareness of their past literary behaviour. For instance, in Thebaid Book 1, Jupiter is clearly alluding to his epic Ovidian self when he claims to be ‘tired of raging with [his] flashing thunderbolt’ (taedet saeuire corusco | fulmine, 1.216–17). On Ovid's Jupiter as a model for Statius’ god, see Feeney, D., The Gods in Epic (Oxford, 1991), 353–5Google Scholar; Ganiban, R.T., Statius and Virgil: The Thebaid and the Reinterpretation of the Aeneid (Cambridge, 2007), 54–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Criado, C., ‘The contradictions of Valerius’ and Statius’ Jupiter: power and weakness of the supreme god in the epic and tragic tradition’, in Manuwald, G. and Voigt, A. (edd.), Flavian Epic Interactions (Berlin, 2013), 195–214Google Scholar, at 200.

¹⁹ See Leigh, M., ‘Statius and the sublimity of Capaneus’, in Clarke, M.J., Currie, B.J.F. and Lyne, R.O.A.M. (edd.), Epic Interactions: Perspectives on Homer, Virgil, and the Epic Tradition Presented to Jasper Griffin (Oxford, 2006), 217–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 231–2; Chaudhuri (n. 15), 270 reads Statius’ Capaneus as a caricature of Lucretius’ Epicurus whose challenge and victory over fama deum, divine superstition, through the power of thought, is depicted as a journey throughout infinity (Lucr. 1.66–79); on Capaneus’ recuperation of a Lucretian attitude to the gods in Thebaid Book 3 and inconsistencies, see again Chaudhuri (n. 15), specifically 269–70, and on Virgil's Mezentius as an Epicurean precedent for Capaneus, see 271.

²⁰ All translations are my own.

²¹ For Capaneus as a Giant in the Thebaid, see 4.175–6, 5.565–70. On Capaneus’ gigantic and gigantomachic associations, see Harrison, S.J., ‘The arms of Capaneus: Statius, Thebaid, 4.165–77’, CQ 42 (1992), 247–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²² I thank the anonymous reader at CQ for this observation on Statius’ dual use of despectura.

²³ An echo also noticed by Chaudhuri (n. 15), 287.

²⁴ And very much like Amphiaraus as he enters the Underworld: pendens et in aëre uoluor operto (8.110); verbal echoes make one wonder: if the seer managed to travel from one world to another with his chariot, why cannot Capaneus climb onto Olympus?

²⁵ ille nec ingestis nec terga sequentibus umquam | detrahitur telis … tendit et ingenti subit occurrente ruina (Theb. 10.860–3). Compare with Lucr. 1.68–71: quem neque fama deum nec fulmina nec minitanti | murmure compressit caelum, sed eo magis acrem | inritat animi uirtutem effringere ut arta | naturae primus portarum claustra cupiret …; on Epicurus as a (positive) Giant in Lucretius, see Gale, M., Myth and Poetry in Lucretius (Cambridge, 1994), 192–3Google Scholar. Lucan's Scaeva is also an important model here.

²⁶ Williams, R.D., P. Papini Stati Thebaidos liber decimus (Leiden, 1972), 129CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

²⁷ On Achilles’ theomachic struggle with the Scamander, see Chaudhuri (n. 15), 27.

²⁸ E.g. Callim. Hymn 2.105–12; Hor. Carm. 4.2.5–8. On metapoetics in the Hippomedon episode, see J. Brown, ‘Into the woods: narrative studies in the “Thebaid” of Statius with special reference to Books IV–VI’ (Diss., Cambridge, 1994), 19–20; McNelis, C., Statius’ Thebaid and the Poetics of Civil War (Cambridge, 2007), 135–7Google Scholar; and Chaudhuri (n. 15), 213–14.

²⁹ The language of wood construction, used metaphorically in the sense of ὕλη or materia, ‘raw material’, ‘mass of material’, ‘poetic subject-matter’, and the antiquity of the bridge signal the long-standing constructed tradition of poetry that Statius inherits from his predecessors. See Hinds (n. 2), 11–14 for a metapoetic reading of the tree-felling scene in Aen. 6.179–82 (itur in antiquam siluam …) in relation to Ennius, Ann. 175–9 (cf. Skutsch, O., The Annals of Quintus Ennius [Oxford, 1985]Google Scholar, ad loc.) as Virgil's literary encounter with archaic poetry. In Statius, as the trabes and the robora of the bridge give way, it becomes molem aegram, ‘a faltering mass’ (10.868); significantly, molem | roboribus textis at Aen. 2.185–6 describes the Trojan Horse, harking back to the archaic root of epic. On Capaneus as Statius, see Leigh (n. 19), 234–5. On a separate but related note to the river-simile, Leigh comments on ‘tumidity’ (at 238) as failure to achieve the sublime, but it seems to me that Statius’ move to figure Capaneus as a tumid river spells out poetic self-awareness, inviting the reader to join in the implicit irony should the poet fail in his sublime endeavour, a way perhaps of anticipating criticism.

³⁰ On the parallel between Statius and Capaneus as a joined endeavour ‘to raise their game to new heights in sublime furor’, see Hardie, P., ‘Flavian epic and the sublime’, in Manuwald, G. and Voigt, A. (edd.), Flavian Epic Interactions (Berlin, 2013), 125–38Google Scholar, especially 135–6.

³¹ trepidamque assurgens desuper urbem | uidit et ingenti Thebas exterruit umbra (Theb. 10.871–2).

³² Ambivalence in equivalence is a feature of Capaneus’ characterization rather than intertextual confusion as it is the case for Tydeus, though there is something of an overlap between the two. On the latter, see Gervais, K., ‘Tydeus the hero? Intertextual confusion in Thebaid 2’, Phoenix 69 (2015), 56–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ Chaudhuri (n. 15), 256–71 and 284–91.

³⁴ Chaudhuri (n. 15), 285. It makes sense for Statius to align Capaneus’ theomachic aspirations with those of Lycaon, since there is no better example in Ovid's Metamorphoses of such a direct confrontation with Jupiter.

³⁵ On Lycaon as a successful figure in his testing of Jupiter's identity, see Chaudhuri (n. 15), 87. On the ineffectiveness of Jupiter's punishment of Lycaon, see Anderson, W.S., ‘Lycaon: Ovid's deceptive paradigm in “Metamorphoses” 1’, ICS 14 (1989), 91–101Google Scholar.

³⁶ Lovatt, H., ‘Mad about winning: epic, war and madness in the games of Statius’ Thebaid’, MD 46 (2001), 103–20Google Scholar, at 114; Chaudhuri (n. 15), 288–9.

³⁷ On the Ovidian mythological background in the Thebaid, Keith, A., ‘Ovid's Theban narrative in Statius’ Thebaid’, Hermathena 177/8 (2004–5), 181–207Google Scholar. The Lucretian model features a symbolic Gigantomachy with a happy ending, something with which Ovid's Metamorphoses literally engages in the song of the Pierides, who imagine that the Giants defeated the Olympians (5.294–331).

³⁸ Keith (n. 37), 183. Ovid's Metamorphoses is also evoked programmatically in the proem of the Thebaid.

³⁹ Statius’ Jupiter strongly resembles the god of Semele's story in Ovid's Metamorphoses in that both are trapped in their own ways. Ovid's Jupiter is unwittingly trapped by Juno in his promise to Semele to grant any wish she may have, ending up killing her. Coincidentally, in the Thebaid, Jupiter is unaware that he is being the instrument of his infernal brother's will, who prophesies the deeds and death of Tydeus, Hippomedon and Capaneus, in retaliation to Amphiaraus’ violation of his kingdom, a dreadful conspiracy by the Olympians to undermine his authority in Pluto's belief (Theb. 8.34–79).

⁴⁰ In that sense, Capaneus is like Lycaon in that he successfully proves a point about Jupiter.

⁴¹ Leigh (n. 19), 235–6.

⁴² See Feeney (n. 18), 353–5; Hill, D.E., ‘Thebaid I revisited’, in Delarue, F. et al. (edd.), Epicedion: Hommage à P. Papinius Statius (Poitiers, 1996), 35–54Google Scholar and Hill, D.E., ‘Jupiter in Thebaid 1 again’, in Smolenaars, J.J.L., van Dam, H.-J., Nauta, R.R. (edd.), The Poetry of Statius (Leiden and Boston, 2008), 129–41Google Scholar.

⁴³ Feeney (n. 18), 353 and 355.

⁴⁴ See Hill (n. 42 [1996]), 52; Hill prefers to identify Domitian with Theseus, whose ‘leonine superiority’ must be contrasted with his Athenian troops, who are compared to dogs and degenerate wolves (12.738–40). Contrast with Dominik, W.J., The Mythic Voice of Statius (Leiden, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who reads Statius’ entire epic as positively hostile to Domitian. See also Braund, S., ‘Ending epic: Statius, Theseus, and a merciful release’, PCPhS 42 (1996), 1–23Google Scholar. For a nuanced view of Statius’ treatment of Domitianic power in the Thebaid, see Rebeggiani, S., The Fragility of Power: Statius, Domitian, and the Politics of the Thebaid (Oxford, 2018)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Capaneus is right in his claim that gods care naught for mortals (Theb. 3.657–61), for what lures Jupiter into action is not the fate of the Thebans but rather Capaneus’ provocations.

⁴⁶ On this point, see specifically Lovatt, H., Statius and Epic Games: Sport, Politics and Poetics in the Thebaid (Cambridge, 2005), 133–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on Capaneus as both Jovian and gigantic during the boxing game in Thebaid Book 6, see Lovatt (this note), 134–5, where he is likened to thunderbolt with his fists as fulmineas … manus (6.750) and to the Giant Tityos rising from the Underworld (6.753).

⁴⁷ Giants were creatures with snakes for legs: Ov. Fast. 5.35–8.

⁴⁸ On this passage, Lovatt (n. 46), 134 observes: ‘Jupiter is almost tempted to turn him back into a giant by thunderbolting him forthwith: but, like Jupiter of Ovid Amores 2.1, he only picks up his thunderbolt, failing to actually hurl it.’ See also Vessey (n. 9), 188. I would slightly modify Lovatt's reading by stressing that Jupiter does hurl his thunderbolt but it is too feeble, because the strength of the fire is proportional to the god's anger, which is not great here (minor ira deo, 5.585); Jupiter's inability to summon a greater wrath that would show concern for the loss of a creature meant to be dear to him adds to his depiction as a selfish Ovidian god.

⁴⁹ See Lovatt (n. 46), 133–5.

⁵⁰ A deviation from Homer, who, according to Ps.-Longinus (9.7), strived to make men more like gods, and gods more like men. Is this yet another attempt for Statius to take sublime aesthetics to another level?

⁵¹ See Bernstein, N.W., ‘Auferte oculos: modes of spectatorship in Statius’ Thebaid 11’, Phoenix 58 (2004), 62–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 64–5, repr. in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Flavian Epic (Oxford, 2016), 234–61Google Scholar, especially 240–3.

⁵² See Ganiban (n. 18), 132; see also Criado, C., La teología de la Tebaida estaciana: el antivirgilianismo de un clasicista (Hildesheim, 2000)Google Scholar, and on ‘anti-piety’ as a central theme to Statius’ Thebaid mirroring negatively the Aeneid, see Pollmann, K., ‘Statius’“Thebaid” and the legacy of Virgil's “Aeneid”’, Mnemosyne 54 (2001), 10–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ On Jupiter's problematic relationship with Fate in Statius’ Thebaid, see Criado (n. 18), 195–214. That Jupiter's intervention should ‘come after’ Tisiphone's re-enacts on the metapoetic level the idea of his literary ‘secondariness’.

⁵⁴ See Hill (n. 42 [2008]), 129. See also Ganiban (n. 18), 114–16 and 117–51.

⁵⁵ On Hannibal as Capaneus and Tydeus, and vice versa, see Stocks (n. 15), 73–5, especially 73 n. 46 with bibliography for Hannibal as Salmoneus, all viewed as ‘models of inverted heroism’. Parthenopaeus is also considered but only as an influence operating in a single direction. I agree with Stocks that Hannibal encapsulates all these Statian heroes at various points, but I find Capaneus to be a more pervasive model.

⁵⁶ huc | lustrat equo muros aditumque per auia quaerit, Aen. 9.57–8; cf. Pun. 12.563–6.

⁵⁷ On the dissemination of Aeneid Book 8 in Silius’ Punica, see Pomeroy, A., ‘Silius’ Rome: the rewriting of Vergil's vision’, Ramus 29 (2000), 149–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar, repr. in Augoustakis, A. (ed.), Oxford Readings in Classical Studies: Flavian Epic (Oxford, 2016), 321–44Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ For intertextual engagement framed as a character ‘remembering’ an earlier text in which he/she has been ‘incarnated’, see Hinds (n. 2), 3–5; Nauta, R., ‘Metalepsis and metapoetics in Latin poetry’, in Eisen, U.E. and von Möllendorf, P. (edd.), Über die Grenze: Metalepse in Text- und Bildmedien des Altertums (Berlin, 2013), 223–56Google Scholar and 469–82.

⁵⁹ For parallels on ‘interrupted reading/gazing’ as an epic trope, see Aeneas’ viewing of the temples of Juno and Apollo at Aen. 1.494–7 and Aen. 6.33–9 respectively.

⁶⁰ ac legeret uisu cuncta et penetraret in omnis | spectando partis, ni magno turbine adesset | Fuluius … (Pun. 12.569–71).

⁶¹ Compare with Pun. 3.45–6. Gibson, B.J., ‘Hannibal at Gades: Silius Italicus 3.1–60’, PLLS 12 (2005), 177–95Google Scholar.

⁶² See Aesch. Sept. 430–1.

⁶³ Hannibal's demystifying outlook on natural phenomena marks a clear departure from Livy, where the Carthaginians saw in the storms a divine intervention and left on account of it. See Livy 26.11.4: in religionem ea res apud Poenos uersa est, auditaque uox Hannibalis fertur potiundae sibi urbis Romae modo mentem non dari, modo fortunam; ‘This event was interpreted among Carthaginians as a divine intervention, and Hannibal was heard saying that the aim to capture Rome, at one time, chance, at another, was denied to him.’

⁶⁴ On Silius’ yearly celebrations of Virgil's birthday, see Plin. Ep. 3.7.8–9.

⁶⁵ Lovatt (n. 17), 98 reads Hannibal as a ‘resisting viewer’.

⁶⁶ See also Pun. 12.661: inuadit Notus ac … | circumagit castrisque ducem succedere cogit; Aen. 1.85–6 mentions the winds Notus, Eurus and Africus, unleashed by the wind-god Aeolus, who works for Juno against Jupiter. In Punica Book 12, Notus, Boreas and Africus are gathered to fight on Jupiter's side (12.617–19). Is Silius correcting Virgil? In Hesiod's Theogony, the divinely born Notus works for men, not against them. In Statius’ Thebaid Book 10, the storm gathers itself without a wind, sine flamine (10.914).

⁶⁷ See Hinds (n. 2), 9.

⁶⁸ Stocks (n. 15), 74.

⁶⁹ In the Iliad, Zeus allows the gods to get physically involved in combat.

⁷⁰ On Hannibal's experience of divine epiphany and links with Aeneid Book 2, see Pomeroy (n. 57), 338.

⁷¹ ille iacet lacerae complexus fragmina turris, | toruus adhuc uisu memorandaque facta relinquens | gentibus atque ipsi non illaudata Tonanti (Theb. 11.9–11).

⁷² On Statius’ Ovidian sphragis, see Newlands, C., ‘Statius and Ovid: transforming the landscape’, TAPhA 134 (2004), 133–55Google Scholar, at 136.

⁷³ Tipping, B., Exemplary Epic: Silius Italicus’ Punica (Oxford, 2010), 69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁴ sed mihi uel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat | uel pater omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras (Aen. 4.24–5). Chaudhuri (n. 15), 254 notices the link with Dido.

⁷⁵ On the poet's attempt to ‘write the tradition into his poem’, and the subjectivist approach of the reader to the text, see Hinds (n. 2), 142–4.