106 BRUCE GIBSON
went back to the traditions of Alexander’s wars against the Persians
(thus we find them mentioned in Q. Curtius, for instance)^43 , or Rome’s
wars against Hellenistic monarchies. Valerius’ treatment is very simi-
lar indeed to the account of the fiasco with Antiochus III’s scythed
chariots at the battle of Magnesia as reported by Liv. 37.41.^44 An in-
terest in evoking the grandeur of historical combat would also explain
Statius’ mention of the Macedonian sarisa in Theb. 7.269; the term is
used in Lucan twice (8.298 and 10.47), but on both occasions it is
clearly with reference to Macedonians. In Statius’ passage, fraxineas
Macetum uibrant de more sarisas, “they brandish pikes of ash after
the manner of the Macedonians”, there is a brilliant conflation: Statius
recalls the age-old spears of ash that we find used in Homer, as
Smolenaars notes,^45 but he also evokes the much later set-piece gran-
deur of the Macedonian phalanx of the age of Alexander and of the
Hellenistic kingdoms at the same time.
Similarly, we find the apparatus of siege weapons and the like find-
ing its way into the Thebaid. Thus Statius’ poem includes siege en-
gines such as the tormentum. The tormentum appears in the historical
epics of Lucan and Silius,^46 and in Virgil the word appears twice, but
on both occasions in a simile (A. 11.616, 12.921–2)^47. Statius, how-
ever, has two references to tormenta: the first at Theb. 9.146, where
Hippomedon would have been unaffected by tormenta, might be felt
to be comparable to the word’s appearance in Virgil, but at 10.859
tormenta occur in the main narrative, when they are used by the citi-
zens of Thebes in an attempt to dislodge Capaneus, in the same pas-
sage where the Balearic sling is mentioned. Similarly, the iron-topped
chariot, said to be scythed at Mela 3.52 and also at Sil. 17.417 (in a simile). The pres-
ence of couinni is also noted by Tac. Ag. 35.3 and 36.3 (a reference to their flight) at
the battle of Mons Graupius in AD 84. Mart. 12.24.1 refers to their use in Rome as a
means of carriage.
43 See e.g. the account of Darius’ order of battle at Curt. 4.12.
44 As noted by Wijsman 2000, 157.
45 Smolenaars 1994, 134.
46 Luc. 3.480, 3.716; Sil. 1.475, 6.214, 6.279, 9.560.
47 See further Horsfall 2003, 352 on the tormentum at Verg. A. 11.616. Cf. Ov.
Met. 3.549–50 where Pentheus wishes that Thebes was being destroyed by men and
tormenta (in the context of denouncing the religion of Dionysus), 9.218 (Hercules and
Lichas) mittit in Euboicas tormento fortius undas, 14.183–4 (Macareus on the stones
thrown by the Cyclops being ueluti tormenti uiribus acta, 183). On Roman imperial
artillery see Marsden 1969, 174–98, who notes (188 n. 5) that tormentum is in fact a
vague term for a siege-engine, which tends to occur more in less technical writers.