Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal

by Harold Edgeworth Butler

Of the other characters there is little to be said. For all the wealth of detail that Statius has lavished on them, they are featureless. Adrastus is a colourless and respectable old king, strongly reminiscent of Latinus. Capaneus and Hippomedon are terrific warriors of gigantic stature and truculent speech, but they are wholly uninteresting. Argia and Jocasta are too rhetorical, Antigone too slight a figure to be really pathetic; Oedipus can do little save curse, which he does with some rhetorical vigour; but the gift of cursing hardly makes a character. Parthenopaeus, however, is a pathetic figure; he is an Arcadian, the son of Atalanta, a mere boy whom a romantic ambition has hurried into war ere his years were ripe for it. His dying speech is touching, though it errs on the side of triviality and mere prettiness (ix. 877):

at puer infusus sociis in devia campi tollitur (heu simplex aetas!) moriensque iacentem flebat equum; cecidit laxata casside vultus, aegraque per trepidos exspirat gratia visus, * * * * * ibat purpureus niveo de pectore sanguis. tandem haec singultu verba incidente profatur: 'labimur, i, miseram, Dorceu, solare parentem. illa quidem, si vera ferunt praesagia curae, aut somno iam triste nefas aut omine vidit. tu tamen arte pia trepidam suspende diuque decipito; neu tu subitus neve arma tenenti veneris, et tandem, cum iam cogere fateri, dic: "Merui, genetrix, poenas invita capesse; arma puer rapui, nec te retinente quievi, nec tibi sollicitae tandem inter bella peperci. vive igitur potiusque animis irascere nostris, et iam pone metus. frustra de colle Lycaei anxia prospectas, si quis per nubila longe aut sonus aut nostro sublatus ab agmine pulvis: frigidus et nuda iaceo tellure, nec usquam tu prope, quae vultus efflantiaque ora teneres. hunc tamen, orba parens, crinem"—dextraque secandum praebuit—"hunc toto capies pro corpore crinem, comere quem frustra me dedignante solebas. huic dabis exsequias, atque inter iusta memento, ne quis inexpertis hebetet mea tela lacertis dilectosque canes ullis agat amplius antris. haec autem primis arma infelicia castris ure, vel ingratae crimen suspende Dianae."'

But the boy fell into his comrades' arms and they bore him to a place apart. Alas for his tender years! As he died, he wept for his fallen horse: his face drooped as they unbound his helmet, and a fading grace passed faintly o'er his quivering visage….

The purple blood flowed from his breast of snow. At length he spake these words through sobs that checked his utterance: 'My life is falling from me; go, Dorceus, comfort my unhappy mother: she indeed, if care and sorrow can give foreknowledge, has seen my woeful fate in dreams or through some omen; yet do thou with loving art keep her terrors in suspense and long hold back the truth; and come not upon her suddenly, nor when she hath a weapon in her hands; but when at last the truth must out, say: "Mother, I deserved my doom; I am punished, though my punishment break thy heart. I rushed to arms too young, and abode not at home when thou wouldst restrain me: nor had I any pity for thine anguish in the day of battle. Live on then, and keep thine anger for my headstrong courage and fear no more for me. In vain thou gazest from the Lycaean height, if any sound perchance may be borne from far to thine ear through the clouds, or thine eye have sight of the dust raised by our homeward march. I lie cold upon the bare earth, and thou art nowhere nigh to hold my head as my lips breathe farewell. Yet, childless mother, take this lock of hair"— and in his right hand he stretched it out to be cut away—"take this poor lock in place of my whole body, this lock of that hair which thou didst tire in my despite. To it shalt thou give due burial and remember this also as my due; let no man blunt my spears with unskilful cast, nor any more drive the hounds I loved through any caverned glen. But this mine armour, whose first battle hath brought disaster, burn thou, or hang it to be a reproach to Dian's ingratitude."'

When we have said that Parthenopaeus is almost too young to have been accepted as a leader, or have performed the feats of war assigned to him, we have said all that can be said against this beautiful speech. Parthenopaeus is for the Thebais what Camilla is for the Aeneid, though he presents at times hints both of Pallas and Euryalus. But he is little more than a child, and fails to carry the conviction or awaken the deep emotion excited by the Amazon of Vergil.[565]

Statius then, with a few striking exceptions, fails in his portrayal of life and character. On the whole—one says it with reluctance in view of his brilliant variety, his boundless invention, his wealth of imagery—the same is true of his descriptions. The picture is too crowded; he has not the unerring eye for the relevant or salient points of a scene. Skilful and faithful touches abound, but, as in the case of certain pre-Raphaelite pictures, extreme attention to detail causes him to miss the full scenic effect. He is not sufficiently the impressionist; he cannot suggest—a point in which he presents a strong contrast to Valerius Flaccus. And too many of his incidents, in spite of ingenious variation of detail, are but echoes of Vergil. The foot-race and the archery contest at the funeral games of Archemorus, together with the episode of Dymas and Hopleus,[566] to which we have already referred, are perhaps the most marked examples of this unfortunate characteristic. We are continually saying to ourselves as we read the Thebais, 'All this has been before!' We weary at times of the echoes of Homer in Vergil, and the combats that stirred us in the Iliad make us drowsy in the Aeneid. Homer knew what fighting was from personal experience, or at least from being in touch with warriors who had killed their man. Vergil had come no nearer these things than 'in the pages of a book '. Statius is yet one remove further from the truth than Vergil. He is tied hand and foot by his intimate acquaintance with previous poetic literature. If he is less the victim of the schools of rhetoric than many post-Augustan writers, he is more than most the victim of the poetic training of the schools. But with all these faults there are passages which surprise us by their effectiveness. It would be hard to imagine anything more vigorous and exciting than the fight of Tydeus ambushed by his fifty foes. The opening passage is splendidly successful in creating the requisite atmosphere (ii. 527):

coeperat umenti Phoebum subtexere palla Nox et caeruleam terris infuderat umbram. ille propinquabat silvis et ab aggere celso scuta virum galeasque videt rutilare comantes, qua laxant rami nemus adversaque sub umbra flammeus aeratis lunae tremor errat in armis. obstipuit visis, ibat tamen, horrida tantum spicula et inclusum capulo tenus admovet ensem. ac prior unde, viri, quidve occultatis in armis?' non humili terrore rogat. nec reddita contra vox, fidamque negant suspecta silentia pacem.

Night began to shroud Phoebus with her humid pall and shed her blue darkness o'er the earth. He drew nigh the forest, and from a high knoll espied the gleam of warriors' shields and plumed helmets, where the boughs of the wood left a space, and in the shadow before him the quivering fire of the moonbeam played o'er their brazen armour. Dumbstruck at what he saw, he yet pursued his way, only he made ready for the fight his bristling javelins and the sword sheathed to its hilt. He was the first to speak: 'Whence come ye?' he asked, in fear, yet haughty still. 'And why hide ye thus armoured for the fray?' There came no answer, and their ominous silence told him no peace nor loyalty was there.

The fight that follows, though it occupies more than 160 lines, is intensely rapid and vigorous; indeed it is the one genuinely exciting combat in Latin epic, and forms a refreshing contrast to the pseudo-Homeric or pseudo-Vergilian combats before the walls of Thebes. In no other portion of the Thebais does Statius attain to such success, with the exception of the passage already quoted descriptive of the death of Amphiaraus. But there are other passages of sustained merit, such as the vigorous description of the struggle of Hippomedon with the waters of Ismenus and Asopus.[5671] While it is not particularly interesting to those acquainted with the corresponding passage in the Iliad, it would be unjust to deny the gifts of vigour and invention to the Latin poet's imitation.

It is, however, rather in smaller and more minute pictures that Statius as a rule excels. The picture of the baby Opheltes left by his nurse is pretty enough (iv. 787):