A commentary on Silius Italicus' Punica 7 : edited with introduction and commentary / by R. Joy Littlewood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Littlewood, R. Joy.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius. Punica--Liber VII--Commentaries.

Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius.

Rome--History, Military--265-30 B.C--Poetry.

Rome.

Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius. Punica--Liber VII.

Punic War, 2nd, 218-201 B.C--Literature and the war.

Punic War, 2nd, 218-201 B.C.

Punic War, 2nd, 218-201 B.C--Poetry.

Carthage (Extinct city)--Poetry.

Carthage (Extinct city).

Epic poetry, Latin--History and criticism.

Epic poetry, Latin.

Genre:

Poetry.

Physical Description:

xcix, 276 pages : illustrations, map ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

Once stigmatized as 'the worst epic ever written', Silius Italicus' Punica is now the focus of a resurgence of critical interest and wide-ranging positive reappraisal. In a climate of flourishing interest in Flavian literary culture, Punica 7 now joins the rising number of commentaries on Flavian epic. While offering an insightful analysis of Silius' complex intertextuality, Littlewood demonstrates how his republican theme bears the imprint of Rome's more recent experience of civil conflict ad the military and civic ethos of the Flavians, and illuminates the poet's engagement with luxuria, exploring tensions within the literary and political culture of the Age of Domitian. The narrative of Punica 7 is a tale of treachery and perseverance, of a battle of wills and the desecration of the Italian land, which is poetically interpreted through intertextual allusion to Virgil's Georgics. In the center of the book Hannibal commits the anti-pastoral atrocity of igniting 2000 Roman ploughing oxen to simulate a nocturnal raid based on Homer's Doloneia. The burning flesh of this subverted sacrifice, interwoven with imagery evoking bacchanal madness and the rising smoke of the sack of Troy, sets the stage for a dramatic finale in which Rome's traditional virtues triumph over oriental guile and internal discord. This penetrating study explores how the historical narrative coalesces with mythology, the proto-history of Rome, and the genealogy of its protagonists.

Littlewood's volume is the first full English commentary on a book of Silius Itaicus' Punica to be published. It is supported by an extended introduction covering Silius' life, his literary models, the characterization of his protagonists, Fabius and Hannibal, his epic style, and the transmission of the text. Book jacket.

Contents:

I Ti. Catius Asconius Silius Italicus: His Contribution to Public Life and Literature xv

II Literary Models xix

1 Intertextual Allusion in Silius xx

2 Silius' Historical Sources: Livy and Polybius xxiii

3 Homer xxviii

4 Ennius xxxii

5 Virgil xxxiv

a The fall of Troy xxxvii

b The violation of Italy: Silius' subverted Georgic xxxviii

6 Ovid's Fasti xliv

a Faunus, fertility, and the Fabii xlv

b Contrasting theoxenies: Ovid's Hyrieus and Silius' Falernus xlvii

7 Lucan xlix

a Civil war and the divided command xlix

b Personal ambition and the danger of autocracy li

c The discourse of luxuria liv

8 Statius lvi

9 Valerius Flaccus lix

III The Protagonists of Punka 7 lxiii

1 Q. Fabius Maximus, a Flavian and a Stoic hero lxiv

2 Hannibal, an Oriental Enemy lxxi

IV Silius'Epic Style lxxv

1 The Structure of Punka 7 lxxv

2 Language and Style lxxx

3 Epic Rhetoric: The Speeches of Fabius and Hannibal lxxxvi

4 Poetic Varietas in Silius' Hand-to-Hand Combat Ixxxviii

V The Transmission and Reception of Punka xci

Sigla xcvii

Sili Italici Punicorum Liber Septimus 1

Commentary 33.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [252]-267) and indexes.

Contains:

Silius Italicus, Tiberius Catius. Punica. Liber VII.

ISBN:

9780199570935

0199570930

OCLC:

706025084