DUST, WATER AND SWEAT: THE STATIAN PUER 197
Likewise, we often find the dust of war ‘soiling’ the beautiful faces of
the lovely and effeminate child-heroes,^6 starting from the semiuir
Phrygius Aeneas, whom Turnus addresses with ironical contempt:^7
Da sternere corpus
loricamque manu ualida lacerare reuolsam
semiuiri Phrygis et foedare in puluere crinis
uibratos calidos ferro murraque madentis
(Verg. A. 12.97–100)
Grant me the power to bring down that effeminate Phrygian, to tear the
breastplate off his body and rend it with my bare hands, to foul in the
dust the hair he has curled with hot steel and steeped in myrrh! (tr. West
1990)Flavian poetry presents the topical contrast between oriental luxury
and elegance and bellicose pride in a variety of situations.^8 I would
now like to dwell on two pueri, Valerius’ Pollux and Statius’ Al-
cidamas, in two passages that reveal precise intertextual, lexical and
thematic connections. Pollux and Alcidamas are both child-heroes.
One is pictured with the first lanugo on his beautiful face (V.Fl. 4.233
uixdum etiam primae spargentem signa iuuentae), the other is almost
still a child (Theb. 6.756 paulo ante puer), even if endowed with great
strength for his tender age (Theb. 6.756–7 maturius aeuo / robur),
according to the recurring topos of the puer delicatus.^9 Both Pollux
6 In Ovid’s elegies, dust can also soil and blemish the fair body of the puella: dum
loquor, alba leui sparsa est tibi puluere uestis / sordide de niueo corpore, puluis, abi
(Am. 3.2.41–2).
7 The effeminacy and looseness of morals of the Trojans, used to elegance,
dances, inertia (Verg. A. 9.615 desidiae cordi) and the ‘perverse’ cult of the Great
Mother, as opposed to the Italic durum genus are the core of Numanus Remulus’
speech to Ascanius (A. 9.595–620; cf. Nauta 2007b, 85–6), expressly quoted by Sta-
tius in Parthenopaeus’ words to Amphion ( 8 Theb. 9.790–800).
Cf. the pueri Myraces (V.Fl. 6.699–710), Eunaeus (Stat. Theb. 7.649–87),
Crenaeus (Theb. 9.332–8), Atys (Theb. 8.564–8), Parthenopaeus (Theb. 4.265–70;
6.570; 9.684–99) and Cinyps (Sil. 12.232–3), which represent a perfect fusion of the
ambiguous and alluring features of the contemporaneus puer delicatus with the rever-
berations of the epic topos of the “oriental” warrior, a model of elegance and luxury,
starting from Homer’s Paris (Il. 3.16; 6.504; 512; 13.765–9); these boy-heroes are
often the victims of fierce enemies more used than they are to the logic of war, like
Syenes (V.Fl. 6.703 saeuum ... Syenen), Capaneus (Stat. Theb. 7.669; 675), Tydeus
(Theb. 8.576–91) and Dryantes (Theb. 9.842 horrendum ... Dryanta).
9 In Statius’ Silvae, for instance, the delicatus Glaucias is renowned for his preco-
cious reserve and modesty (Silv. 2.1.39–40 rapit inde modestia praecox / et pudor et
tenero probitas maturior aeuo), and moreover for having surpassed the other boys of
his age with a precocious pride both in his face and his demeanour (108–11 Sic tener