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 illustrates the kind of desire to
compress material which we have already seen elsewhere.
Days and nightsI wish now to consider Statius’ use of an important structural feature
of martial epic, the onset of daylight, and its relation to book-
divisions. Descriptions of the beginning of day of course go back to
Homer, even though Homeric scholars are generally in agreement that
the divisions of the Iliad into books probably go no further back than
the fourth century BC at the earliest.^24 In the case of Statius, the be-
ginning of day often falls at points which are not the outset of battle:
thus, in Book 7 the description of dawn on the first day of the fighting
introduces not the beginning of the war, but instead the arrival of Jo-
casta among the Argives (Theb. 7.470–88).^25 In Book 8, the day that
had included Amphiaraus’ descent into the underworld is not brought
to a close until 8.161. The night that follows then includes the mourn-
ing for Amphiaraus and celebrations in Thebes, and a meeting of
Adrastus’ council which appoints Thiodamas to replace Amphiaraus
(8.271–93); interestingly, this council might be felt to recall such noc-
turnal meetings as those convoked by Agamemnon at the start of Iliad
2 and 10, but Statius shows a desire to strike out on his own by plac-
ing this meeting just before dawn. The next day begins with the poet
declining to have a conventional scene of dawn at all: the opening of
day is marked by a seamless transition to the opening of battle with
the two sides going out to fight (Theb. 8.342–70), before the invoca-
tion to Calliope and Apollo at 8.373–4. Here one might have in mind
the opening of day in, for example, Iliad 11, one of the middle days of
the fighting in the Iliad, but whereas in Iliad 11 the opening of battle
is marked out by Zeus sending Eris (Strife) to the ships of the
Achaeans (Il. 11.3), in Statius Tisiphone sets events in motion from
the summit of Teumesus (Theb. 8.344–7), while Bellona beats on the
gates (8.348–9). Not only does Statius not give the standard opening
23 Hardie 1993, 46.
24 For a convenient discussion of Homeric book-divisions in the Iliad, see Taplin
1992, 285–93.
25 On Jocasta’s visit to the Argive camp, see Ganiban 2007, 110–2; McNelis 2007,
122 n. 86.