BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID 99
environs occupied by the two sides. Now of course, some aspects of
this technique are already present in Homer, such as similes, which I
shall deal with later, and the inclusion of scenes set in the divine
sphere, such as those set on Olympus, or the visit of Thetis to
Hephaestus in Iliad 18. However it is worth noticing how Statius is
willing to shift the scene elsewhere on the mortal level as well, even
during the midst of battle. The most striking instance of this is in
Book 9 after the death of Hippomedon, when Statius moves the focus
to the mother of Parthenopaeus, Atalanta. And while Virgil in Aeneid
9, after the death of Nisus and Euryalus, reported the news being con-
veyed to the mother of Euryalus and her reactions (A. 9.473–502), we
should remember here that Euryalus’ mother is in the camp of the
Trojans (interesting called urbem in A. 9.473), as indicated by the fact
that Euryalus, before the night raid takes place, confesses himself
unwilling to burden her with the news of his involvement. While in
Virgil there is not really a significant shift of locale, Statius’ treatment
of Atalanta, however, represents something quite different: we are
actually confronted by an instance of the motif of the parent left be-
hind, as the poet takes us from the action on the battlefield (Hippome-
don has just been killed), to describe the events of the night before the
battle currently in progress. Thus as well as providing a geographical
shift, with the scene moving from Thebes to Arcadia, there is also a
temporal shift in the narrative as well, as we move back from the
midst of battle to a description of Atalanta’s dream. Statius conveys a
sense of the experience of a parent far from war, a motif often alluded
in the Iliad, and often indeed referred to in the case of Peleus, the fa-
ther of Achilles, but never actually shown: Peleus’ loneliness in Phthia
is spoken of by the characters, but he never appears directly in the
poem. Statius provides an effective transition back to the action, be-
cause Atalanta’s prayer to Diana is then followed by the goddess’
decision to involve herself in at least assisting the hero for a while
before his death. A briefer example of something similar also occurs
in Book 9, with the death of Crenaeus, which takes his mother, the
nymph Ismenis, away from the scene of the fighting down the river
Ismenos almost to the sea (Theb. 9.370–1) where she finally is able to
recover her son’s body.