by Horatius Piscinus on Fri Dec 12, 2003 1:54 pm
Salve Tiberi
The Achilleid Statius never completed. There are only two books. Both the Thebaid and Achilleid are original works, not translations, and only loosely based on Greek sources. By Statius' time the Greek stories were so well known that any semi-educated Roman would be familiar with them.
What I have been looking at are the prayers that Statius included in his works. There are some references to rites. Are they Greek because the subject is Greek? No, I think Statius was really describing Roman attitudes, rites, and Roman religious concepts. For example, Thebaid II 740. A prayer is offered to Minerva (II 715-742) where in exchange for Her services on the battlefield, a vow is made to establish a new temple for Her, along with a hundred virgins to serve in Her devotions, and an elderly preistess, longaeva sacerdos, to attend Her altar throughout the night and to maintain Minerva's arcanum pudorem . Loeb version translates this as "mystic sanctities" as though it were some sort of Eleusian mysteries of Minerva. But what Statius is refering to are the kind of rites performed for Minerva at the Capitolium, and criticized by Seneca; i.e. the priestess attended Minerva's toiletries. I am not familiar with Greek practices to a point where I could say Greek practices were not considered, but Statius, being Roman, was I think more likely refering to the Roman temple practices.
Another passage that interests me is Thebaid IV 443-487 where there appears an exorcism of a field. Some farmers had newly ploughed a vacant field, releasing the shades of fallen soldiers on an ancient battlefield. A rite is performed that could be either Greek or Roman, sacrificing black animals to the Gods of the Underworld. While much of its imagery uses conventions drawn from Greek myth, still the rite retains Roman aspects.
There is a similar matter with the Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus. The basic story may have originated with the Greeks but Valerius wrote from a Roman perspective for a Roman audience. The same is found with Plautus using Greek plays on which to model his own. Are Shakespeare's plays, many drawn from Ariosto's Orlando Furioso and set in Italy, to be regarded as Italian or English plays? Statius took a difficult subject in the Thebaid, in that it was written in several different Greek sources, and never before Statius combined into a single coherent story. Leave it for others to decide how well he may have succeeded in his effort but Statius did make over the many Greek stories into a single Roman story.
Vale optime
M Horatius Piscinus
Sapere aude!