DUST, WATER AND SWEAT: THE STATIAN PUER 199
character. He too wants to ridicule and eliminate his opponent’s ephe-
bic appearance:^10
non has ego puluere crasso
atque cruore genas, metuit quibus ista iuuenta
semiuiri, foedem, mittamque informe sepulcro
corpus et Oebalio donem lugere magistro?
(Theb. 6.819–22)
These cheeks for the sake of which that effeminate youth is so anxious,
shall I not foul with clotted dirt and blood, shall I not send his maimed
body to the grave and give it to his Oebalian master to mourn?Capaneus’ words stress the contrast between the ephebe’s innocent
and ambiguous world and the dust (Theb. 6.819 puluere), the blood
(6.820 cruore), the disfigured body (6.821–2 informe ... / corpus), and
finally the grave (6.821 sepulcro) and the mourning (6.822 lugere). In
Theb. 6.820 we may notice the antithetic matching of cruore genas,
where the blood is set side by side with the term properly defining the
grace and beauty of the puer.^11 It is interesting to point out how Ca-
paneus’ words recall those of Virgil, not only in the sarcastic remarks
on effeminacy (Theb. 6.821 semiuiri), like those of Turnus about Ae-
neas (A. 12.99 semiuiri Phrygis), but especially in the almost technical
use of the verb foedo (A. 12.99 ...foedare in puluere crinis; Theb.
6.819–21 non has ego puluere crasso / atque cruore genas ... / ...
foedem), in its meaning of ‘soiling’ with the dust of battle the beauti-
ful face of an enemy considered inadequate to fight, because still a
child, effeminate or ‘oriental’.
Nevertheless, dust and sweat on the child-hero’s body and face do
not only constitute, in the Flavian epos at least, a negative element of
the ephebe’s charm. On the contrary, they belong to a typology of
beauty based on aesthetic contradictions. Nor does the seductiveness
of dust and sweat seem to support Ovidian theorizations on the forma
neglecta (Ars 1.509 forma uiros neglecta decet...); rather, they seem
10 The text is very contested. I here follow Håkanson 1969, 169–70, who reads
metuit for meruit and takes over Klotz’ semiuiri for semiuir, and I have adapted
Shackleton Bailey’s translation accordingly. 11
Genae is also found in the portraits of the boys Achilles (Ach. 1.351), Partheno-
paeus (Theb. 4.274 dulce rubens uiridique genas spectabilis aeuo; 4.336; Silv. 2.6.45;
Pac. 362R² Nunc primum opacat flora lanugo genas:), Hypanis (Theb. 8.492), Atys
(Theb. 8.653), Castor and Pollux (Theb. 5.440 nudus uterque genas).