Fides in Flavian Poetry

Statius’ Thebaid recounts the Argive expedition and the fratricidal war between Oedipus’ sons and the resolution of the first part of the war through Theseus’ intervention and the burial of the dead soldiers. Recent studies have focused on the dark overtones of the poem, highlighting the prevalence of nefas as a keyword (Ganiban [2007], Augoustakis [2010]), as well as of prouidentia and clementia for the resolution of the miasma in the end (Bessone [2011]).

It has long been recognized that fides is a central ethical concept in the Punica and that this fact is established early on in the epic, in Silius’ account of Hannibal’s siege of Saguntum in books 1-2 (von Albrecht [1964]).

Paper 3 examines the Flavian poet Statius’ deployment of fides as the structuring force of interpersonal relations in the Silvae. I focus primarily on the poet’s appeal to fides as a means of imagining voluntary, enthusiastic participation in structures of domination. My approach is similar to discussion of the fictions of libertas in Silvae 1.6 (Chinn [2008]). Praise of subordinates’ fides suggests that their extraordinary loyalty is a voluntary gift, when in reality the threat of punishment compels their service.

The Octavia, one of the earliest surviving Flavian texts (Smith [2003], Boyle [2008]), actively participates the Flavian era’s renegotiation of the memory of Nero and the Julio-Claudian dynasty. In particular, I suggest, the play rewrites the Age of Nero as a place of fundamentally misdirected and at times perverted fides, especially in its portrayal of the final generations of Julio-Claudian women.

This introduction will outline the aims of the Panel and will provide an overview of the function and importance of fides in the early Roman Principate (Julio-Claudian and Flavian), especially in its literature.