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Allusion to Ovid and others in Statius' Achilleid

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

P.J. Davis
P.J. Davis*
Affiliation:
University of Tasmania
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Extract

It has become a commonplace of Statian criticism that, if Thebaid invokes Virgil as model, then Achilleid sees Statius using Ovid. Important work has been done in this field, most notably by Rosati and Hinds: Rosati has explored the relationships between Achilleid and several Ovidian texts, while Hinds has insisted on the centrality of Metamorphoses to understanding Achilleid: ‘it is an epic: a markedly Ovidian, markedly metamorphic epic’. This essay aims to extend that discussion through consideration of the differences between Statius and his Ovidian models in his handling of a number of key episodes.

The most obvious connection between Ovid's works and Statius' Achilleid is the story of Achilles' rape of Deidamia, for these are the only extant classical poets to narrate the story at any length. That Statius' account actually alludes to Ovid's account in Art of Love is clear. For example, both poets use marked alliteration when describing Achilles' violence:

uiribus ilia quidem uicta est, ita credere oportet:

sed uoluit uinci uiribus ilia tamen.

(Ars 1.699f.)

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , 2006 , pp. 129 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 2006

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References

1. The truth is more complex than this, for Thebaid also employs Ovidian models. See Keith, A., ‘Ovidian Personae in Statius’s Thebaid’, Arethusa 35 (2002), 381–402CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Conversely, and this will be important for my argument, Achilleid also employs Virgilian models.

2. See, for example, Barchiesi, A., ‘La guerra di Troia non avrà luogo: il proemio dell’ Achilleide di Stazio’, AION(filol) 18 (1996), 45–62Google Scholar, at 56–59, who discusses Ovidian allusions in the proem; Fantham, E., ‘Statius’ Achilles and his Trojan Model’, CQ 29 (1979), 457–62, at 457CrossRefGoogle Scholar (‘the relaxed tone, the gentle irony and open humour take us into Ovid’s world’), and ‘Chironis exemplum: On Teachers and Surrogate Fathers in Achilleid and Silvae’, Hermathena 167 (1999), 59–70Google Scholar, at 60 (‘Statius, so close to Ovid in command of language, word play and ironic or playful tone’); Feeney, D., ‘Tenui…latens discrimine: Spotting the Differences in Statius’ Achilleid’, MD 52 (2004), 85–105Google Scholar; Hardie, P., The Epic Successors of Virgil (Cambridge 1993), 63 n.8Google Scholar; Heslin, P.J., The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid (Cambridge 2005), 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘It is fitting that the Latin generic model for the Achilleid will be Ovid’s Metamorphoses, given that the extant part of the Achilleid is a metamorphic tale of Achilles’ transformation from wild boy to girl to young warrior’.

3. Rosati, G., ‘L’Achilleide di Stazio: un’epica dell’ambiguità’, Maia 44 (1992), 233–66Google Scholar. Rosati discusses the thematic similarities between the transvestite Achilles’ love for Deidamia and a number of episodes in Metamorphoses: Myrrha’s illicit love for her father, the disguised Jupiter’s encounter with Callisto and the story of the sexually ambiguous Iphis. He also considers Achilles’ departure from Deidamia in the light of similar stories in Heroides, most notably Heroides 13, Laodamia’s letter to Protesilaus. It would be difficult, however, to argue that Statius alludes to these episodes.

4. Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry (Cambridge 1998), 136fGoogle Scholar. Emphasis is original.

5. The phrase potitur uotis (‘he gains his desires’) is also Ovidian, for it is used at Met. 11.265. Feeney (n.2 above), 93, notes that ‘these very words were used…to describe Peleus’ conquest of Thetis’.

6. For more detailed discussion of this passage, particularly its sexual punning and political implications, see Davis, P.J., Ovid and Augustus: A Political Reading of Ovid’s Erotic Poetry (London 2006), 94fGoogle Scholar.

7. Aricò, G.L., ‘L’Achilleide di Stazio: tradizione letteraria e invenzione narrativa’, ANRW II.32.5 (Berlin 1986), 2944Google Scholar: ‘Ma le insidiae…e la tecnica stessa della seduzione si pongono sulla linea della strategia suggerita da Ovidio al suo amator…Deidamia à investita di una nuova forma di collaborazione a questo lusus.’

8. For Achilles’ charm see 1.567 (blande) and cf. Ars 1.273, 362, 619, 663; for song see 1.572–75 and cf. Ars 1.596; for praise see 1.576 (laudat) and cf. Ars 1.621.

9. For this see Feeney’s excellent discussion (n.2 above, 88–91).

10. Lyne, R.O.A.M., Words and the Poet: Characteristic Techniques of Style in Vergil’s Aeneid (Oxford 1989), 81fGoogle Scholar.

11. The phrase ille ego is common enough, with the PHI disk listing forty-five examples. In this case it is the context that secures the allusion.

12. Heslin (n.2 above), 275, points to the significance of the fact that Achilles continues to wear women’s clothing after the rape: ‘Rape, that Ovidian signifier of maleness, has surprisingly limited repercussions for Achilles’ own identity.’

13. Cf. Silveira Cyrino, M., ‘Heroes in D(u)ress: Transvestism and Power in the Myths of Heracles and Achilles’, Arethusa 31 (1998), 207–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who claims that Statius follows Ovid’s example and locates ‘this initial, pivotal moment of Achilles’ unmasking as a man and his rape of Deidamia during a ritual of Bacchus’ (235).

14. Cf. Ovid’s treatment of Iphis and lanthe at Met. 9.666–797 where the risk of female homosexuality is ultimately averted. For discussion of the relevance of Iphis and lanthe to Achilleid see Rosati (n.3 above), 248.

15. Dilke, O.A.W. (ed.), Statius: Achilleid (Cambridge 1954), 107Google Scholar: ‘cogique volentem…may have been inspired by Ov. A.A. 1,666, 700, a passage dealing with Achilles and Deidamia.’

16. The triple repetition may also allude to Catullus 64, as Heslin (n.2 above, 142) points out.

17. Rape stories in Metamorphoses are not without jocular moments, most notably at 1.510f., but such moments are rare.

18. Ach. 1.918 (shame), 1.668 and 671 (silence); cf. Daphne’s guilt at Met. 1.547 (qua nimium placui, mutando perde figuram, ‘destroy by transformation the beauty which has made me too pleasing’) and Callisto’s silence and shame at Met. 2.450 (sed silet et laesi dat signa rubore pudoris, ‘but she is silent and by blushing gives signs of the injury to her shame’).

19. Cf. Jupiter as Diana with Callisto, Jupiter as bull with Europa, Apollo as Eurynome with Leucothoe and the list of divine disguises on Arachne’s tapestry at Met. 6.103–20.

20. For similarities in treatment of the opening storm (or non-storm) of Aeneid and Achilleid see Aricó (n.7 above), 2933f., and Heslin (n.2 above), 106–09.

21. Feeney (n.2 above), 89f.; Heslin (n.2 above), 93–101.

22. Hinds (n.4 above), 124–29. For Statius’ use of Catullus 63 and 64 see Lauletta, M., ‘L’imitazione di Catullo e l’ironia nell’ Achilleide di Stazio’, Latomus 52 (1993), 84–97Google Scholar.

23. The extraordinary use of tmesis in 1.192 deserves mention: the cutting of the word Minotaurus represents the breaking of the creature’s arms.

24. The argument of Rosati (n.3 above, 240) that Achilles is attracted by Deidamia’s somewhat masculine energy (‘anzi, è proprio il carattere ambiguo di quella bellezza, non una grazia morbida e delicata, ma piuttosto tendente a una certa mascolina energia, a esercitare un fascino irresistibile sul giovane eroe’) seems to me mistaken. At 1.290–92 the narrator emphasises the beauty of all Lycomedes’ daughters, likening Deidamia’s superior beauty to that of Diana and Venus. It is true that he compares her to Minerva, but only to a Minerva stripped of her warrior (i.e. masculine) attributes (1.299f.). The claim that hers is ‘una bellezza…ermafrodita’ seems to me unsupported by the evidence.

25. Heslin’s argument (n.2 above, 153) that the behaviour of Lycomedes’ daughters at the banquet is indeed Amazonian supports my case.

26. On Statius’ exploitation of another Senecan tragedy in Achilleid see Fantham (n.2 above, ‘Statius’ Achilles’).

27. The poem proposes yet another model for Achilles’ behaviour: Paris. For this see Heslin (n.2 above), 176.

28. I would like to thank Jessica Dietrich and the anonymous reader for Ramus for their incisive comments on this essay.