STATIUS, DOMITIAN AND ACKNOWLEDGING PATERNITY 191
In this version the myth (whose political value is of course no less
evident in comparison with the alternative one) appears as an example
of rebellion against established authority;^50 Phaethon is no more the
impulsive and inexperienced youth, but the ambitious rebel, who is
therefore struck by Jupiter’s thunderbolt, the very symbol of estab-
lished authority. This seems to be, for example, the reason for Jupi-
ter’s “fierce anger” in the reference to the myth by Lucretius:^
At pater omnipotens ira tum percitus acri
magnanimum Phaethonta repenti fulminis ictu
deturbauit equis in terram, Solque cadenti
obuius aeternam succepit lampada mundi
disiectosque redegit equos iunxitque trementis,
inde suum per iter recreauit cuncta gubernans,
scilicet ut ueteres Graium cecinere poetae.^51
(Lucr. 5.399–405)
But the almighty Father, stirred then with fierce anger, crashed down
ambitious Phaëthon from his car to the earth with a sudden thunderbolt,
and the Sun, meeting his fall, caught up from him the everlasting lamp
of the world, and bringing back the scattered horses yoked them in
trembling, and then guiding them on their proper path restored all again- that, you know, is the tale which the old Grecian poets have sung.^52
Although a minority in the preserved sources, this version of
Phaethon’s myth, and the political reading connected to it, seems to
have become canonical, especially in panegyrics (e.g. Claud. VI Cons.
Hon. 185–92),^53 and enjoys widespread fortune in the figurative tradi-
tion until the modern age. Anyway, for Statius’ readers the Phaethon
paradigm must have been quite familiar: when, e.g., in the chariot race
of the Thebaid’s sixth book, Polynices’ ride is compared to
Phaethon’s, this stands as a clear symbol of the bad leader, and his
catastrophic guidance is an omen for the tragic destiny of Thebes.^54
Like Phaethon, Polynices too is worried about his origins (as son of
50 Cf. also Theb. 1.219–21, as discussed by Hill in this volume, 133.
51 Magnanimus thus is probably to be seen as ‘over-ambitious’ (Costa 1984, ad
loc.). Hardie 1986, 184 n. 72, notes the similarities between Lucretius’ Phaethon and
Salmoneus (who passed himself off as Jupiter, by displaying his symbols and attrib-
utes) of A. 6.585ff.
52 Translation by Rouse-Smith 1975.
53 Cf. Dewar 1996, 170 and 184. Cf. also Ruf. 2, 211ff.; Chevallier 1982, 403 and
413ff.
54 On Phaethon as a figure of Polynices, who “overturns the cosmos of the The-
baid”, cf. Lovatt 2005, 32ff.