This volume stands out for its comprehensive investigation of visuality in the poetry of Statius as a whole. Through an intertextual approach, combined with ancient and modern theories of vision, it explores how visuality shapes Statius’ poetic corpus and how, in turn, Statius defines the very notion of visuality itself.
Flanked by an introduction and a conclusion, this book is divided into nine chapters. Drawing on a comparison with Aeschylus’ Septem and Euripides’ Phoenissae, ch. 1 examines how Statius’ visualisation of the Seven in the Catalogue of Thebaid 4 incorporates ‘tragic’ ways of seeing. While retaining Aeschylus’ chiastic arrangement of the heroes and their weapons from the Redenpaare scene, Statius replaces Aeschylus’ visualisation of the shields through the eyes of male viewers with Euripides’ female gaze. Thus, the teichoskopia scene in the Phoenissae provides the blueprint for a female mode of spectatorship that results in Statius’ choice of Argia and Atalanta as critical viewers of the heroic parade. The discourse on the Catalogue in Thebaid 4 continues in ch. 2, which evaluates the influence of epic visualities from Homer and Virgil. Whereas the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2 provides a series of toponyms, along with cartographic and ‘hodological’ perspectives that virtually expand the Argive geography through a tour of Homeric Greece, the Catalogue of Italians in Aeneid 7 stands out as a model for techniques of deviant focalisation, as well as for the arrangement of the narrative sequences into a series of ‘pictorial’ panels. Ch. 3 examines how Statius’ ecphrases associated with Vulcan's craftsmanship (the necklace of Harmonia, the Temple of Mars and the House of Sleep) stage the adultery story of Mars and Venus as a ‘visual metanarrative’. Although the reading may not always be straightforward, this section highlights how the spatial configuration of the three ecphrases evokes an imperial geography reminiscent of the Aeneid and how Statius’ visualisation of the adultery story redefines Virgilian ways of focalising imperial history in the Aeneid itself. Returning to martial objects, ch. 4 compares the minor ecphrases of Theseus’ and Crenaeus’ shields. Linked through imagery of bulls or bull-like creatures and allusions to Catullus 64, these shields form an ecphrastic pair that functions as a smaller-scale surrogate for the grandiose shield ecphrases in Homeric and Virgilian epics. However, rather than reflecting the main themes of the poem to which they belong, as do the shields of Achilles and Aeneas, the shields of Theseus and Crenaeus provide visual and aesthetic criteria for reading the narrative of the Thebaid itself ‘as if it were a kind of visual object’ (18).
The visual essence of the Achilleid is addressed in ch. 5, with a focus on the blush that accompanies Achilles’ transformation. The hero's blush, constructed through allusions to other literary genres, can be read in light of the meanings attributed to this phenomenon by the Roman audience in terms of youth, shame, anger and deception, thus becoming a visual and hermeneutic tool for interpreting the poem itself.
The last four chapters deal with the Silvae. Ch. 6 shows how Domitian's equestrian monument (Silv. 1.1) and the public space in which it stands engage with the epic visualities of the Aeneid and the visual history of Rome. Combining this scenario with the genre of ecphrastic epigram, the description of the statue marks a new chapter in Rome's ‘spectacular’ history and develops its ‘epic visuality’ into a ‘visuality of Empire’ in which Domitian's achievements are magnified. A miniature version of Domitian's colossus is the statuette of Hercules Epitrapezios (Silv. 4.6), examined in ch. 7. This ecphrastic poem transforms the epic and epigrammatic visualities of Silvae 1.1 through a detour into satire, thus replacing the imperial visuality of epic with one of luxury and imperial consumption. Moving on to the poems dedicated to the villas of Manilius Vopiscus (Silv. 1.3) and Pollius Felix (Silv. 2.2), ch. 8 discusses how Statius draws on visual strategies to celebrate ‘the good life’ in the exclusive spaces of villas by reversing the traditional Roman moralising criticism against the luxury of private homes. By critically engaging with various intertexts (mainly Horace and Virgil), Statius celebrates — through ecphrasis and visual distinction — what a moralising attitude would have condemned. Ch. 9 focuses on the baths of Claudius Etruscus (Silv. 1.5) and the tree of Atedius Melior (Silv. 2.3). The aquatic environments of these poems, marked by the illusion of reflection, stage the dynamics of the erotic gaze through a series of allusions to Ovid and Horace which suggest different ways of visualising erotic stories. Interestingly, this chapter shows how Statius reworks Augustan erotic visuality by scrutinising the visual errors that can be attributed to the Ovidian lovers’ gaze through the figure of the Horatian wise lover, who can indicate alternative ways of viewing. The book closes with a final investigation of the impact of Statian visuality on late antique authors such as Ausonius, Claudian and Dracontius, thus brilliantly demonstrating how Statius takes pride of place in defining a new notion of visuality within the literary tradition.
Through a series of insightful analyses and stimulating observations, this volume not only enhances our understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon of visuality in Statius, but also lays the theoretical foundation for future studies on this fascinating topic in other authors.
