The Poetry of Statius

100 BRUCE GIBSON

Similes

I turn now to the similes used by Statius in the course of the poem.
Clearly, there are examples which reflect the practice of Homer and
Virgil, with heroes being compared to wild animals, for example; thus
Haemon is compared to a boar that has been wounded once, when he
withdraws from confrontation with Tydeus in Theb. 8.532–5. How-
ever, Statius also employs another type of simile, where the situation
of the battle is envisaged in counterfactual and slightly different terms,
but without the characteristic movement whereby epic similes take the
audience away from the events to another context. Let me give an
illustration of what I mean by this.
At Theb. 8.390–4, we hear of how, in the fury of battle, even the
horses rage against their enemies:

quid mirum caluisse uiros? flammantur in hostem

co rnipedes niueoque rigant sola putria nimbo,

corpora ceu mixti dominis irasque sedentum

induerint: sic frena terunt, sic proelia poscunt

hinnitu tolluntque armos equitesque supinant.

What reason to wonder that men grew hot with rage? The horses are in-

flamed against the enemy, and soak the crumbling ground with a snowy

cloud, as if their bodies were mingled with their masters and they had

assumed the anger of their riders: so do they wear out the bridle, so do

they demand battle with their neighing, and raise their shoulders and

throw their horsemen backwards.

Here one might well compare this simile with the imagery of centaurs
used elsewhere in Statian similes (cf. Theb. 7.638–9 and 9.220–2). But
whereas these other instances compare horse and rider to something
different, in this passage, Statius’ material for the simile is its own
context, and the horses are in fact being compared to themselves in a
hypothetical situation where they become mingled with their mas-
ters.^28 This is therefore not a simile of the type which takes the audi-
ence away from the context of the main narration. There are of course
parallels in earlier epic, as we shall see, but Statius’ poem is peculiarly
rich in such similes. At the opening of book 9, there are two examples.

28 For the idea of the horse being like its rider, perhaps compare the horse in the
equestrian statue of Domitian at Silv. 1.1.46–7, at sonipes habitus animosque imitatus
equestres / acrius attollit uultus cursumque minatur, “but the horse, imitating the
bearing and spirit of its rider, raises its head more keenly and threatens a charge”.