The Poetry of Statius

DUST, WATER AND SWEAT: THE STATIAN PUER BETWEEN

CHARM AND WEAKNESS, PLAY AND WAR∗∗∗∗

Lorenzo Sanna

In this paper I discuss some of the many elements composing the am-
biguous and fascinating figure of the numerous ephebic heroes in Sta-
tius’ epos and generally in the whole of Flavian epic: the presence and
meaning of puluis on the bodies of the child-heroes and the meaning
of one of the puer’s preferred surroundings, that is to say water, dan-
gerous rivers or clear fountains.
Starting, then, with dust, we often find it as part of the contrasts
constituting the ‘oxymoronic’ aspects of the Flavian pueri, epic pro-
tagonists while still in their childhood. They are usually as luxuriously
and elegantly attired as the contemporaneous delicati; they are also
marked by the teenage feature of indistinct sex and disposition.^1 Dust,
often combined with sweat, stresses the child hero’s charm: his sweaty
and dusty body strikes the imagination and is highly seductive; the
puer’s delicate and white body covered in puluis belli acquires a fas-
cinating and heroic status. All the same, sweat and dust are only aes-
thetic details, the elements of an ambiguity that is often fatal to the
puer in battle.
Traditionally, and not only in epic, dust belongs to the topical con-
text of war.^2 Together with blood and sweat it constitutes one of the
most evident marks of battle on the hero’s body:

∗ A version of this paper was given at the Amsterdam symposium on The Poetry
of Statius (November 16 and 17, 2005) and was partially included in an article that
will be published in Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo, with the title ‘Polvere e su-
dore tra eroismo e seduzione: il ritratto dell’efebo nella poesia flavia’. I thank my
audience at the Amsterdam symposium, and especially Hans Smolenaars, who was so
kind as to invite me.
1 On the importance of the theme of ephebic beauty in Statius and Martial cf. La
Penna 2000, 65–168.
2 Topical, for instance, the juncture puluis belli (Stat. Theb. 10.729 medio de
puluere belli; cf. Silv. 5.1.132 puluerea bellorum nube; V.Fl. 2.419 puluere pugnae).