Madeline Thayer (University of Southern California)
What does the Argo have to do with Achilles? From the beginning of the narrative of Statius’ Achilleid, the poet establishes the Argonautic voyage as a key precursor to the events of his own poem. Previous studies have noted that Statius draws upon earlier accounts of the Argonautic voyage, most notably Catullus 64 and Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, to inform his poem’s characters and poetics (Hinds, Feeney 2004, Parkes, Davis). My paper will contribute to this discussion by exploring how Statius integrates into his text the meaning of the Argo as it was developed by the Roman literary tradition, namely as the demarcation between the Golden and Iron Ages. I will argue that Statius, while not explicitly using the terminology of golden and iron ages as for instance, Vergil does, nonetheless uses language and imagery characteristic of the Iron Age to describe the setting of the Achilleid. Thus, the Achilleid is post-Argo not only in chronological or literary-allusive terms, but also with respect to the myth’s meaning in Roman literature. In this way, Statius builds upon what Putnam (p.126) has termed the "antisaecular" quality of Achilles as developed in earlier literature (e.g., Catullus 64, Vergil Eclogues 4, Horace Odes 4.6).
We can see an awareness of the negative consequences of the Argo’s voyage as ascribed to it by the Roman tradition in Thetis’ supplication to Neptune, in which she attempts to persuade him to sink Paris’ fleet. Thetis decries the fact that ever since the Argo “broke the laws and distant majesty of the sea, the crimes of the land go with safe sails” (eunt tutis terrarum crimina velis | ex quo iura freti maiestatemque repostam | rupit Iasonia puppis Pagasaea rapina, 1.63-65), an allusion to the moral decline that characterizes the post-Argo, Iron Age world (e.g., Cat. 64. 397-408; Sen. Medea 301-379). Neptune builds upon this Iron Age sensibility in his inability to acquiesce to Thetis; like the sea in the second choral ode of Seneca’s Medea, which “has yielded and obeys all laws” (Nunc iam cessit pontus et omnes | patitur leges, Med. 364-65), Neptune states that he must yield to the consulta belli that have been “decreed” (edixit) by Jupiter (1.82-83). Finally, the Greek ships themselves at Aulis, which have “overwhelmed” (operta) the sea and whose "sails swallow up all winds” (totos consumunt carbasa ventos), are able to do what Neptune cannot, which is to “raise their own storms” (suasque hiemes…attollit, 1. 443-446). The text thus represents the forces of nature as disempowered with respect to human technology of war.
In conclusion, consideration of how the Achilleid uses the myths of the Argo and Trojan War in order to reflect upon the Golden and Iron Ages will help us to historicize the text, an aspect which remains relatively (though not completely, e.g., Barchiesi 2021) understudied. In 88 CE, Domitian celebrated the Ludi Saeculares, and the special issue of coinage minted to commemorate the occasion suggests that Domitian’s ludi drew heavily upon the Augustan celebration in 17 BC (Grunow Sobocinski). Thus the discourse of the Golden (and Iron) Age likely had political relevance at the time of Statius’ writing.