Verses from a Campanian Tomb? Vergil and Silius Italicus’ Punica
8–11 October, 2025—Cuma, Italy: Villa Vergiliana
Co-organized by Antony Augoustakis and Clayton Schroer
Joseph Wright of Derby was no literary critic, but when he committed oil to canvas in the late 18th century, he unwittingly prophesied a reality faced by scholars of Silius Italicus today. In the painting, a shadowy Silius sits hunched over the tomb of Vergil, as if attempting to studiously summon living, poetic genius from the sterile, silent grave. Pliny the Younger would have appreciated having such a frontispiece for his epistle 3.7, when he described Silius’ poetics as being marked by “more effort than talent” (Plin. Ep. 3.7.5). Even today, Silius’ imitation of Vergil, whether one finds it slavish or something more creative, inspires relatively little surprise and even less sustained scholarly study. While we should not dismiss the important efforts of recent scholars like Casali, Landrey, and Klaassen, we must admit that things have not substantively changed in the 30 years since Horsfall’s Companion to the Study of Vergil proclaimed that “Silius’ language and style have not been much studied in relation to Vergil’s” (291).
We propose to convene an international group of scholars to help remedy this situation. The solution need not be a quantitative one: Horsfall’s Companion, for instance, bemoans that then, as now, “there is no Juhnke for Vergil in the Punica” (292). We envision, even more, qualitative approaches to such points of contact, which present untapped interpretative avenues. Consider, for instance, the elder consul Scipio in his rebuke of the Gaul Crixus, and the way that he summons Vergil’s Neoptolemus to mind: Sil. 4.286 (ferre haec umbris proavoque memento), cf. Verg. Aen. 2.548–49 (illi mea tristia facta / degeneremque Neoptolemum narrare memento). This allusion not only invites comparison between Scipio’s anger and a more Achillean (even Juno-like?) wrath, but also, perhaps, encourages us to question the nature of Scipio’s “sacrifices” on the battlefield as a response to Neoptolemus killing Priam in front of an altar (Sil. 4.232: inferias caesis mactat; cf. Sil. 4.464–65: multasque paternos / ante oculos animas, optata piacula, mactat).
Possible paper topics include, but are by no means limited to:
The influence of individual Vergilian (e.g. Aeneas, Turnus) characters in the Punica
The makrostruktur of the Punica in relation to the Aeneid
Generic experimentation in Vergil and Silius
Latter-day Aeneas’es in Ovid and Silius
Silius’ didacticism and Lucretius/Vergil
Philosophy in Vergil and Silius
The Homer(s) of Vergil and Silius
Vergil, Silius, and Hellenism
The language of the conference will be English. Proposals of 500 words should by submitted by 1 February, 2025 to Clayton Schroer (clayton.schroer@emory.edu) for full consideration. Those accepted will be notified in March. This international conference will be hosted in cooperation with the Vergilian Society in their biannual conference series; attendees will be hosted at the Society’s Villa in Cuma and will have the opportunity to visit various sites of Vergilian and historical interest.
