The Poetry of Statius

BATTLE NARRATIVE IN STATIUS, THEBAID∗

Bruce Gibson

Introduction

Battle narrative is difficult. Difficult for us, in attempting to under-
stand something which perhaps does not have an immediate place of
prestige in our cultures nowadays,^1 but it is also difficult for poets.
Homer had already acknowledged this implicitly with the invocation
of the Muses before the Catalogue of Ships in Iliad 2 (Il. 2.484–93):
there is also the often forgotten moment in Iliad 12.175–6 where the
poet acknowledges the practical problem of narrating the complexities
of battle:^2

Ἄλλοι δ’ ἀμφ’ ἄλλῃσι μάχην ἐμάχοντο πύλῃσιν·

ἀργαλέον δέ με ταῦτα θεὸν ὣς πάντ’ ἀγορεῦσαι·

The others fought the battle at different gates: it is difficult for me to

narrate all this as if I were a god.

The story of the Seven against Thebes offered Statius the chance to
narrate battle at the various gates. But although he provides a list of
Theban contingents and their commanders leaving from the seven
gates (Theb. 8.351–7), he does not provide anything like the classic
set-piece accounts of the Seven that we find in Aeschylus’ Septem

∗ I am indebted to Robin Seager and Tony Woodman for their detailed responses
to an earlier version of this paper. I am also grateful to members of the audience who
contributed to the discussion when this paper was first delivered in Amsterdam in
November 2005, and to the editors for their comments and encouragement during the
process of revision
1 Cf. Vessey 1973, 283 on the battle narrative in the Thebaid: “These are the most
Homeric scenes of the epic and, for a modern reader, perhaps the most difficult to
appreciate.”
2 The authenticity of these lines was doubted (the A-scholion on 12.175 goes so
far as to describe the poet’s expression in 12.176 of the difficulty of narration as
laughable, geloion): see the scholia on Iliad 12.175 and 12.175–81 in Erbse 1974,
335–7; cf. Taplin 1992, 166 n. 22. The notes of Hainsworth 1993, 336–7 on 12.175–8
and 176 are more sympathetic. Perhaps compare Thuc. 7.44.1, on the difficulties for
combatants in knowing what is going on during a battle.