202 LORENZO SANNA
While Parthenopaeus, still in the middle of a dreamlike mixture of
emotions, games and childish fantasies, goes on to a deceptive
aristeia,^20 refusing praise for his pure beauty, the poet confirms the
nature of the child-hero and his sweet^21 and delicate charm, which is
such that it arouses the pity of the Thebans. Indeed, in the hero’s eph-
ebic features (9.706–7) they see their own children (natorum memo-
res), and the passions of the nymphs are inflamed (9.709–11)^22 by the
contrast between the ambiguous and feminine beauty and the sweat
and dust covering the soldier’s body (ipso sudore et puluere gratum).
Just as for the aesthetic model of the puer delicatus and the fash-
ions and the literary styles of the Flavian age the influence of the im-
perial court^23 and of the exemplum of the puer Caesareus Earinus^24 is
quite plain, in this case we can set Statius’ picture of the fascinating
Parthenopaeus, “beautified” by the dust of war,^25 alongside the exem-
plum of Domitian. Indeed, one of Martial’s epigrams describes the
return of a splendid and victorious emperor from the Sarmatian cam-
20 From the start the poet warns the reader, alternating the account of the massacre
with questions concerning the actual merits of Parthenopaeus, in order to provide a
further contrast between the hypnotic state of the puer and the actual facts; Partheno-
paeus’ endeavour is only the result of Diana’s protection and caelestia tela (Theb.
9.752–3 ...sed diuum fortia quid non /tela queant?; 770–1 Numquam cassa manus,
nullum sine numine fugit /missile; 772–3 ...unum quis crederet arcum /aut unam
saeuire manum?...).
21 Cf. the anaphora of dulce in Theb. 9.701–2.
22 Nymphs who had already fallen in love with the puer in Arcadia (Theb. 4.254–
5). The theme of the nymphs’ falling in love with handsome boys is a topos (e.g.
Theoc. 13.48–9, where the nymphs fall in love with Hylas); it is also to be found in
Flavian epic in the sories of Crenaeus (V.Fl. 3.181) and Lapithaon (Stat. Theb. 7.297–
300), as well as in the Achilleid, where the nymphs weep upon Achilles’ departure,
bewailing their vanishing hope for long awaited nuptials (Ach. 1.241 et sperata diu
plorant conubia Nymphae).
23 In the Flavian age there is a special consonance of themes and images between
iconography, epic poetry, epigrammatic poetry and occasional poems, also contribut-
ing to a process of moral legitimation and aesthetic sublimation of the puer and of the
homoerotic relationship dominus-delicatus; cf. also La Penna 2000, 126–35.
24 Cf. mainly Stat. Silv. 3.4; Mart. 9.11–3; 16–7; 36.
25 We also find an intimation of the charm of the ephebe manoeuvring in the dust
(uersantem in puluere) of battle in Silv. 5.2.118–24 (Gaetulo sic pulcher equo
Troianaque quassans / tela nouercales ibat uenator in agros / Ascanius miseramque
patri flagrabat Elissam; / Troilus haud aliter gyro leuiore minantes / eludebat equos
aut quem de turribus altis /Arcadas Ogygio uersantem in puluere metas / spectabant
Tyriae non toruo lumine matres), where the puer Crispinus is compared to the exem-
pla of the pulcher Ascanius, of Troilus and of the fascinating Parthenopaeus (5.2.124
spectabant Tyriae non toruo lumine matres).