The Poetry of Statius

88 BRUCE GIBSON aristeia at 9.525–8, which really marks the first conventional battle scene of the Aeneid. By contrast, Statius ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 89 las, who is described as being carried by his unreliable horse through the two battle li ...

90 BRUCE GIBSON in view of the fact that on both occasions the heroes are accompanied by divinities in their chariots. However t ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 91 of the Seven against Thebes: one thinks of the Seven on the Argive side, and figures suc ...

92 BRUCE GIBSON while his limbs fell, who permits weapons to pass through his chest and who were fixed to the battlefield with a ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 93 be felt to be significant even in the Thebaid. Though the deaths of individuals are stil ...

94 BRUCE GIBSON What is striking here is how the poet at first treats the nocturnal kill- ings without mentioning the names of t ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 95 taedet fugientibus uti Thesea, nec facilem dignatur dextra cruorem. cetera plebeio desae ...

96 BRUCE GIBSON uses his sword to finish off the action (Theb. 12.771–8; cf. A. 12.949– 50).^23 The final combat of the Thebaid ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 97 of a day according to the Homeric model, but he also replaces the involvement of Zeus at ...

98 BRUCE GIBSON dedecorem amplexi uitam reditusque pudendos. nox fauet et grata profugos amplectitur umbra. (Theb. 11.757–61) Me ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 99 environs occupied by the two sides. Now of course, some aspects of this technique are al ...

100 BRUCE GIBSON Similes I turn now to the similes used by Statius in the course of the poem. Clearly, there are examples which ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 101 First of all, when the Thebans are stirred to respond to Tydeus’ canni- balism, the poe ...

102 BRUCE GIBSON You would think that temples and the city were being seized and that the Sidonian homes were burning with wicke ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 103 Battle narrative and anachronisms I wish to turn now to another issue, the intrusion of ...

104 BRUCE GIBSON Colchian war is compared to Tisiphone sending Roman legions to civil war, Romanas ueluti saeuissima cum legione ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 105 Theb. 10.857,^39 not in a simile, but in his account of how the Thebans resisted Capane ...

106 BRUCE GIBSON went back to the traditions of Alexander’s wars against the Persians (thus we find them mentioned in Q. Curtius ...

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 107 tower on which the trumpeter Enyeus stands at Theb. 11.49 owes more to historical warfa ...