190 GIANPIERO ROSATI
The rays that crown his head are obviously the symbol of command,
which makes Phaethon the ‘new Sun’; but how are we to interpret this
image in the passage by Statius? Compared with Lucan’s text, the
addition (which may reveal that a ‘correction’ of the model was felt to
be necessary, or opportune)^47 introduced by Statius with the crowning
of Phaethon by his father seems to have important political implica-
tions, which transfer the emphasis to another aspect of this character.
We know that according to an ancient version of the myth (whose
evidence is not so good in the main sources, but for which substantial
indications can be collected),^48 Phaethon did not obtain the chariot of
the Sun by his father as proof of his parentage, as in Ovid’s version,
but took possession of it without authorisation, bringing death and
destruction everywhere until Jupiter struck him with his thunderbolt
and restored the world order. According to this version Phaethon is no
longer an allegory of the youthfully impulsive emperor, incapable of
governing the fortunes of the world, but a usurper, who seizes his
father’s power by illegal means, with catastrophic consequences (there
are thus clear affinities between this story and the thematic framework
of the poem that contains it). A clear proof of it we read in the mytho-
grapher Hyginus, who beside the more common, Ovidian version
(154.1 impetratis curribus, “the chariot he asked for”), attests also to
this different one:
Phaethon Solis et Clymenes filius cum cl am patris currum conscendis-
set et altius a terra esset elatus, prae timore decidit in flumen Eridanum
[...] At sorores Phaethontis, quod equos iniussu patris iunxerant, in ar-
bores populos commutatae sunt.
(Hyg. Fab. 152.1)
Phaethon, son of Sol and Clymene, who had secretely mounted his fa-
ther’s car, and had been borne too high above the earth, from fear fell
into the river Eridanus ... But the sisters of Phaethon, because they had
yoked the horses without the orders of their father, were changed into
poplar trees.^4946 Translation by Melville 1986.
47 Is Statius’ reading of Lucan a tendentious one? Does he (as a delator) correct
Lucan’s text by showing how dangerous, how tricky it could be, and thus making a
profession of loyalism? Or does his reading end by enhancing its subversive potenti-
alities?
48 Cf. Gantz 1993, 33, who inclines to credit this version to Aischylos’ Heliades.
49 Translation by Grant 1960.