They Might be Romans: The Giants and Civil War in Augustan Poetry
By David Wright
The poetry of the Augustan era is a crucial turning point for the Gigantomachy theme in Greco-Roman literature. I argue that it is during this period that the myth begins to connote civil strife. Previous scholars have discussed the political symbolism of the gigantomachy: Hardie (1985), in his landmark book on cosmic language in the Aeneid, argues that the theme of the Gigantomachy, which the ancients often conflated with the Titanomachy, suggests a “chaos vs.
The Programmatic ‘Ordior’ of Silius Italicus
By Paul Hay
This paper examines a possible intertextual reference to Ovid in the first word of the Punica of Silius Italicus, and argues that Silius deploys this allusion to reclaim the didactic persona for a traditionalist (and, in particular, Livian) moral narrative of Rome.
Hannibal's Bloody Homecoming in Silius' Punica
By Andrew McClellan
Book 17 of Silius Italicus’ Punica brings the poem to a close with a striking juxtaposition. The victorious general Scipio Africanus leads a triumphal parade through the streets of Rome, and the final image of the parade (17.644: imago) is an effigy of Hannibal fleeing over the fields of Zama (643-4). I argue that Silius is toying with long-held Greco-Roman associations linking funeral and triumphal processions (e.g. Sen. Consol. ad Marc. 3.1: funus triumpho simillimum; Flower, 107-9; Beard, 284-6).
Lucan, Seneca and the plus quam Aesthetic
By Scott Weiss
The proem to Lucan’s Pharsalia stands out within the epic tradition which frames it. Malcovati 1951 and Conte 1966 have demonstrated its engagement with the Aeneid and Iliad, but in many ways it deviates from the norms established by these models. In particular, its paratactic syntax departs markedly from Vergil’s periodic structure; instead of a coherent overview of the trajectory of the epic, we are treated to a rapid torrent of phrases representing the horrors of civil war.