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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 September 2022
This article argues for an alternative interpretation of the ekphrasis of Pelops and Myrtilos among Adrastus’ parade of ancestral images in lines 6.283–5 of Statius’ Thebaid. The majority of scholarly readings believe that the scene described in these lines alludes to the mythical chariot-race between Pelops and Oenomaus. Using a combination of visual, intertextual and intratextual evidence, this article suggests that these lines more likely refer to a later part of the myth—Pelops’ murder of Myrtilos, as the former hurls the latter into the Myrtoan sea from a flying chariot. This paper concludes by exploring what implications this alternative reading has for our understanding of Statius’ use of ekphrasis as a narrative technique and, more specifically, its significance on our reading of the ekphrasis of Adrastus’ ancestral images.
I owe thanks to Philip Hardie, Emily Gowers, Carole Newlands, Max Leventhal and Antonia Reinke, whose valuable insights have improved this article. I would also like to thank CQ's anonymous reader, whose perceptive comments have enriched my thoughts on these lines. Finally, I thank Emily Hover and Daniel Black for their respective expertise on horses and engineering which helped me understand the mechanics of chariot-racing.
1 The texts and commentaries discussed in this paper are as follows: von Barth, C., Publii Papinii Statii quæ exstant (Zwickau, 1664)Google Scholar; Bentivoglio, C., La Tebaide Di Stazio (Rome, 1729; republished Turin, 1928)Google Scholar; H.W. Fortgens, ‘P. Papinii Statii de Opheltis funere carmen epicum: Thebaidos liber VI, 1–295’ (Diss., Groningen, 1934); Joyce, J.W., Statius Thebaid: A Song of Thebes (Ithaca, NY, 2008)Google Scholar; Lesueur, R., Thebaide (Paris, 1990)Google Scholar; Lewis, W.L., The Thebaid of Statius Translated into English Verse, with Notes and Observations and a Dissertation upon the Whole by way of Preface (Oxford, 1767)Google Scholar; Lovatt, H., ‘Statius on parade: performing Argive identity in Thebaid 6.268–95’, CCJ 53 (2007), 72–95Google Scholar; Melville, A.D., Statius, Thebaid (Oxford, 1992); J.H. Mozley, Statius (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1928)Google Scholar; A. Pavan, La gara delle quadrighe e il gioco della guerra. Saggio di commento a P. Papinio Stazio Thebaidos liber VI 238–549 (Alessandria, 2009); J. Poynton, Statius Thebaid IV–VIII (Oxford, 1975); Ross, C.S., Publius Papinius Statius. The Thebaid. Seven against Thebes (Baltimore and London, 2004)Google Scholar; Bailey, D.R. Shackleton, ‘On Statius’ Thebaid’, HSPh 100 (2000), 463–76Google Scholar; Bailey, D.R. Shackleton, Statius Thebaid Books 1–7 (Cambridge, Mass., 2003)Google Scholar; Valvasone, E. di, La Thebaide di Statio: Ridotta dal sig. Erasmo di Valvasone in ottava rima (Venetia, 1570)Google Scholar.
2 It is not clear whether the artwork should be imagined as statues, reliefs or something else: see K. Gervais, Statius, Thebaid 2 (Oxford, 2017), on line 215 and Lovatt (n. 1), 81. A further difficulty with determining the exact nature of the artwork is the fact that their context cannot be identified with one cultural practice, but is a blend of a few: see Lovatt (n. 1), 74–8.
3 Lovatt (n. 1); H.K.C. Tang, ‘Heroic self-fashioning in Statius’ Thebaid’ (Diss., The University of Cambridge, 2019), 60–75. Lovatt makes a similar argument as I do on the correct interpretation of this scene, and also examines the scene's relationship with the Capuan lekythos and with the passage from the Electra: Lovatt (n. 1), 89–90. None the less, I think that a more developed explanation of the scene with its intertextual and intratextual parallels in the mythic traditions would be beneficial here.
4 The number of victims varies. Pindar makes it thirteen (Pind. Ol. 1.75); but Pausanias records eighteen names on a monument said to be erected by Pelops in honour of the failed suitors (6.21.9–11).
5 E.g. Pind. Ol. 1.109. For a record of a visual depiction of Pelops winning in his magical winged chariot, see Paus. 5.17.7.
6 See e.g. Soph. El. 504–14; Eur. Or. 987–97; Hyg. Fab. 84; Schol. Pind. Ol. 1.114; Diod. Sic. 4.73. On the many variant parts of the Pelops myth, see Finglass, P.J., Sophocles Electra (Cambridge, 2011), on lines 504–15Google Scholar.
7 See Pavan (n. 1), on lines 283–5. A second reason may be that readers are being influenced by another famous ekphrasis describing Jason's cloak in Apollonius’ Argonautica (1.752–8), which depicts the chariot-race with Myrtilos driving Oenomaus’ chariot, while the king attempts to spear Pelops in the chariot ahead. This ekphrasis also matches the typical scene on other plastic art works: cf. LIMC s.v. ‘Myrtilos: D. La course de chars’. See Shapiro, H., ‘Jason's cloak’, TAPhA 110 (1980), 263–86Google Scholar, at 283, on the influence from the plastic arts on Apollonius’ depiction of the cloak.
8 V. Berlincourt, Commenter la Thébaïde (16e-19e s.). Caspar von Barth et la tradition exégétique de Stace (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 58.
9 I give here Lactantius’ full comments on these lines: ‘[Vergilius <georg. III 7>: humeroque Pelops insignis eburno.] a Neptuno [enim] aptatos curruli certamini equos acceperat quorum cursu omnes anteiret. ipse quoque Oenomaum superauit, qui a Myrtilo supposito axe cereo superatus est [ab his], unde Horatius (carm. II, 14): Myrtoum pauidus nauta secet mare, dicitur enim praedictus auriga a Pelope praecipitatus in mare.’ The text is taken from Sweeney, R.D., In Statii Thebaida commentum. Volumen I, Anonymi in Statii Achilleida commentum. Fulgentii ut fingitur Planciadis super Thebaiden commentariolum (Leipzig, 2013)Google Scholar.
10 Of these, Melville (n. 1) and Ross (n. 1) translate natantes most literally as ‘swimming’, although they clarify in their explanatory notes that this scene still refers to the chariot-race.
11 No ancient version of the myth specifies that the axle breaks; rather the wheels roll off the axle because the wax linchpins are insufficient to hold them in place. Moreover, it seems that braking was achieved in a real Roman chariot-race when a charioteer leaned back and pulled taut the reins tied around his waist, without making contact with the wheels at all. See Crouwel, J.H., Chariots and other Wheeled Vehicles in Italy before the Roman Empire (Oxford, 2012), 67CrossRefGoogle Scholar. However, cf. Theb. 6.479–81, where Chromis, son of Hercules, manages to crash Hippodamus’ chariot by grabbing onto and breaking the axle; but this is possible only because Chromis explicitly makes use of his inherited Herculean strength (uiribus Herculeis et toto robore patris, 6.480).
12 Compare this against the representation of Tantalus in the lines immediately preceding (6.280–2), where the narrator offers two opposing versions of Tantalus’ portrayal (both of which have literary precedent) while explicitly defining one as the intended ekphrastic scene (non qui … | … | sed …).
13 Lovatt (n. 1), 84.
14 On Statius and his familiarity with the Greek tragic tradition, see P.J. Heslin, ‘Statius and the Greek tragedians on Athens, Thebes and Rome’, in R.R. Nauta, H. van Dam and J.L. Smolenaars (edd.), The Poetry of Statius (Leiden, 2008), 111–28.
15 Text from Diggle, J., Euripidis fabulae (Oxford, 1994), 3.246Google Scholar.
16 See T.S. Duncan, ‘The influence of art on description in the poetry of Statius’ (Diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 1914); Dilke, O., ‘Magnus Achilles and Statian baroque’, Latomus 22 (1963), 498–503Google Scholar; Vessey, D.W.T.C., ‘Lucan, Statius and the baroque epic’, CW 63 (1970), 232–4Google Scholar; Vessey, D.W.T.C., Statius & the Thebaid (Cambridge, 1973), 10–11Google Scholar; Dewar, M., Statius Thebaid IX (Oxford, 1991)Google Scholar, on line 332. What the exact nature of this relationship is—whether literary ekphrasis creates a challenge to visual arts (as in e.g. Marshall, A.R., ‘Spectandi uoluptas: ecphrasis and poetic immortality in Statius Siluae 1.1’, CJ 106 [2011], 321–47Google Scholar) or whether it resolves the tension (as in e.g. D. Heinen, ‘Poetics of elision in the Siluae’, ICS 38 [2013], 159–85, at 160–1)—is still being debated.
17 See LIMC s.v. Myrtilos 25, ‘La mort de Myrtilos’: lekythos showing the death of Myrtilos, Capua, LCS, plate 134, ill. 819.
18 The word natare can refer to objects floating on the surface of water (see OLD s.v. nato 2a) and can metaphorically refer to flight (see OLD s.v. nato 2d). Cf. also Verg. G. 4.59 on bees ‘swimming’ in the ‘liquid’ air.
19 See e.g. Laird, A., ‘Sounding out ecphrasis: art and text in Catullus 64’, JRS 83 (1993), 18–30Google Scholar, at 20 on issues of temporal and other anomalies in a ‘disobedient ecphrasis’.
20 On the techniques of focalization, see e.g. the seminal article by Fowler, D., ‘Narrate and describe: the problem of ekphrasis’, JRS 81 (1991), 25–35Google Scholar as well as the issue of CPh 102 (2007), edited by S. Bartsch and J. Elsner and entitled ‘Special issues on ekphrasis’, especially Goldhill, S., ‘What is ekphrasis for?’, CPh 102 (2007), 1–19Google Scholar and Elsner, J., ‘Viewing Ariadne: from ekphrasis to wall painting in the Roman world’, CPh 102 (2007), 20–44Google Scholar.