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Virgil, Lucan, and the Meaning of Civil War in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica
In: MnemosyneIn his recent monograph (2012) Tim Stover has provided the first full-scale study of Valerius Flaccus’ interaction with Lucan’s Bellum Civile, arguing that the Argonautica restores epic after Lucan and optimistically supports Vespasian’s restoration of the Principate after the civil wars of 68-69 ad. Focusing on the ‘civil war’ between the Argonauts and the Doliones in Book 3 of Valerius’ epic, I will propose an alternative reading of the influence of Lucan as well as Virgil’s Aeneid. Although Valerius at first sight seems to set up the Cyzicus episode in Virgilian fashion, he in fact deconstructs this reading, revealing the impossibility of (re)writing an Aeneid in the Flavian age.
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Barich M. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica: A Verse Translation 2009 Gambier, OH
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Bernstein N.W. In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic 2008 Toronto
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Bernstein N.W. Heerink & Manuwald Romanas veluti saevissima cum legiones Tisiphone regesque movet: Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica and the Flavian Era 2014 154 169 2014
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Boyle A.J. Boyle A.J. & Dominik W.J. Introduction: Reading Flavian Rome Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text 2003 Leiden 1 69
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Braund S.H. Lucan, Civil War: Translated with Introduction and Notes 1992 Oxford
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Buckley E. Kramer N. & Reitz C. War-Epic for a New Era: Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica Tradition und Erneuerung: Mediale Strategien in der Zeit der Flavier 2010 Berlin 431 455
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Burck E. Kampf und Tod des Cyzicus bei Valerius Flaccus rel 1970 173 198 47 bis
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Conte G.B. Latin Literature: A History 1994 Baltimore
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Fairclough H.R. & Goold G.P. Virgil 1999 Cambridge, MA 2 vols.
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Feeney D.C. The Gods in Epic: Poets and Critics of the Classical Tradition 1991 Oxford
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Garson R.W. The Hylas Episode in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica cq 1963 13 260 267
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Garson R.W. Some Critical Observations on Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica i cq 1964 14 267 279
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Hardie P.R. Boyle A.J. Flavian Epicists on Virgil’s Epic Technique The Imperial Muse: Ramus Essays on Roman Literature of the Empire: Flavian Epicists to Claudian 1990 Bendigo 3 20 (= Ramus 18 (1989), 3-20)
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Hardie P.R. Virgil 1998 Oxford
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Heerink M. Heerink & Manuwald Valerius Flaccus, Virgil and the Poetics of Ekphrasis 2014 72 95 2014
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Heerink M. Hylas, Hercules, and Valerius Flaccus’ Metamorphosis of the Aeneid hscp 2015 108 265 308
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Heerink M. & Manuwald G. Brill’s Companion to Valerius Flaccus 2014 Leiden
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Hershkowitz D. Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica: Abbreviated Voyages in Silver Latin Epic 1998 Oxford
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Hinds S.E. Depew M. & Obbink D. Essential Epic: Genre and Gender from Macer to Statius Matrices of Genre: Authors, Canons, and Society 2000 Cambridge, MA 302 304 221-244
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Keith A. Heerink & Manuwald Ovid and Valerius 2014 269 289 2014
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Langen P. C. Valeri Flacci Setini Balbi Argonauticon libri octo 1896-1897 Berlin 2 vols.
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McGuire D.T. Acts of Silence: Civil War, Tyranny and Suicide in the Flavian Epics 1997 Hildesheim
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Malamud M.A. & McGuire D.T. Boyle A.J. Flavian Variant: Myth. Valerius’ Argonautica Roman Epic 1993 London 192 217
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Manuwald G. Valerius Flaccus, Argonautica: Book iii 2015 Cambridge
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Putnam M.C.J. Silvia’s Stag and Virgilian Ekphrasis md 1995 34 107 133
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Putnam M.C.J. Virgil’s Epic Designs: Ekphrasis in the Aeneid 1998 New Haven
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Shelton J.E. A Narrative Commentary on the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus 1971 Diss. Nashville
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Spaltenstein F. Commentaire des Argonautica de Valérius Flaccus (livres 3, 4 et 5) 2004 Brussels
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Stover T. Confronting Medea: Genre, Gender, and Allusion in the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus CPh 2003 98 123 147
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Stover T. Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome: A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica 2012 Oxford
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Tarrant R.J. Martindale C. Aspects of Virgil’s Reception in Antiquity The Cambridge Companion to Virgil 1997 Cambridge 56 72
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Zissos A. Reading Models and the Homeric Program in Valerius Flaccus’s Argonautica Helios 2002 29 69 96
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Zissos A. Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Book 1: A Commentary 2008 Oxford
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Zissos A. Esposito, P. & Ariemma E.M. L’ironia allusiva: Lucan’s Bellum Civile and the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus Lucano e la tradizione dell’epica latina 2004 Naples 21 38
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Zissos A. Garani M. & Konstan D. Stoic Thought and Homeric Reminiscence in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica The Philosophizing Muse: The Influence of Greek Philosophy on Roman Poetry 2014 Newcastle 268 296
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4
Stover 2012, back cover. Cf. p. vii.
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5
See e.g. Boyle 2003, 4-6.
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6
Stover 2012, 115. Cf. Stover’s analysis of Gigantomachy imagery in Chapter 3, which deals with the sea storm in Book 1 of the Argonautica (574-692).
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8
Cf. Garson 1964, 269 (who deals with other tragic aspects of the episode as well); Shelton 1971, 112.
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9
Garson 1964, 269: “(. . .) it is not without significance that the Argonauts’ realization of their error is compared (. . .) to Agave’s in the Bacchae (. . .).”
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10
See Bernstein 2008, 52-54 for these and other ways in which Valerius represents “the combatants as symbolically united through ties of created kinship, a motif not paralleled in Apollonius . . .” (p. 52). Cf. Stover 2012, 123 with n. 33.
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11
Cf. Stover 2012, 135, n. 64: “The simile also adds to the tragic note that Valerius strikes throughout his narrative of the battle.”
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12
Bernstein 2008, 48, 52 (see also n. 10 above).
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13
McGuire 1997, 109-110. Cf. Stover 2012, 123-125 on Valerius’ “terminology of civil war”.
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14
Stover 2012, 123.
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15
Stover 2012, 125.
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16
Stover 2012, 148. See also the quote below.
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17
Stover 2012, 114.
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18
Cf. Bernstein 2014, 159: “As in Lucan’s Bellum Civile and Statius’ Thebaid, the narrator emphasises the arbitrariness of the reasons for the collective punishments levied by angry goddesses at Lemnos and Cyzicus.”
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19
Burck 1970, 180; McGuire 1997, 109. This intertextual link is not mentioned by Stover 2012. Compare also Valerius’ address to Clio at the beginning of the episode (Arg. 3.14-15, tu mihi nunc causas infandaque proelia, Clio, | pande virum.) with Virgil’s question to the Muse at the beginning of the Aeneid (A. 1.8, Musa, mihi causas memora . . .), on which see e.g. Spaltenstein 2004, 10 (ad loc.).
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22
E.g. Stover 2012, 122 n. 31, also for more bibliography.
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24
See e.g. Stover 2012, 114: “even in the midst of bellum civile, there is a clearly defined ‘right side’ and a clearly defined ‘wrong side’. In Valerius’ civil war narratives, the distinction between good and evil does not collapse, as is the case in Lucan’s Bellum Civile.” Cf. p. 141, where Stover speaks of “good and evil” and p. 145, where he states: “. . . Valerius employs gigantomachic imagery to distinguish the Greeks from the Phrygians, the heroes from the villains”.
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25
See also Spaltenstein 2004, 44 (ad loc.) and Manuwald 2015, 98 (ad loc.) for this allusion. Stover (2012, 122-123) does deal with the Virgilian intertext when he discusses Valerius’ allusions in Arg. 2.638 and 3.16-18 to A. 8.124 and A. 8.169, so the Doliones are already associated with the Greeks and the Argonauts with the Trojans at the very beginning of the Cyzicus episode. Stover concludes that “[t]he bond between Vergil’s Trojans and Arcadians thus operates as an important model for the union of Valerius’ Argonauts and Doliones”, but, as I argue on the basis of the later allusion, the relationship between the Argonautica and Aeneid 8 (and Aeneid 2 for that matter) is not straightforward and evolves.
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28
Stover 2012, 142-147.
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29
Stover 2012, 115. For his treatment of the passage itself, see Stover 2012, 142-147.
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30
Stover 2012, 115. Cf. the quote above.
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31
Cf. Manuwald 2015, 102 (ad loc.).
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32
See Stover 2012, 100-102 for Lucan’s Caesar as a “gigantomachic mariner” in this episode.
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33
Stover 2012, 114-115.
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34
Hershkowitz 1998, 120. Incidentally, Stover 2012 does not treat Jason’s aristeia in Cyzicus.
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35
This paragraph is based on Heerink 2014, 95.
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36
Cf. e.g. Bernstein 2014, 160. See Stover 2012, 27-77 (Ch. 2: “The Inauguration of the ‘Argonautic moment’”) for a different, i.e. optimistic, interpretation of the “Jovian programme” (p. 28) in Valerius’ Argonautica, including Jupiter’s prophetic speech and the transition from the Golden to the Iron Age.
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Virgil, Lucan, and the Meaning of Civil War in Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica
In: MnemosyneIn his recent monograph (2012) Tim Stover has provided the first full-scale study of Valerius Flaccus’ interaction with Lucan’s Bellum Civile, arguing that the Argonautica restores epic after Lucan and optimistically supports Vespasian’s restoration of the Principate after the civil wars of 68-69 ad. Focusing on the ‘civil war’ between the Argonauts and the Doliones in Book 3 of Valerius’ epic, I will propose an alternative reading of the influence of Lucan as well as Virgil’s Aeneid. Although Valerius at first sight seems to set up the Cyzicus episode in Virgilian fashion, he in fact deconstructs this reading, revealing the impossibility of (re)writing an Aeneid in the Flavian age.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 457 | 97 | 6 |
| Full Text Views | 332 | 19 | 1 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 169 | 44 | 2 |