Silius Italicus: Punica, Book 3 Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary

by Augoustakis, Antony; Littlewood, R. Joy

• ISBN13: 9780198821281
• ISBN10: 019882128X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2022-10-03
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Hannibal's crossing of the Alps represents a momentous event in the beginning of the Second Punic War (218-202 BCE). The third book of Silius Italicus' Punica reimagines this courageous feat, retracing the journey of Hannibal and his army from the temple of Hercules/Melqart in Gades, across the Pyrenees, the Rhone, and the Alpine peaks into northern Italy. Significant stages in the journey are marked by prophecies: the gods reveal to Hannibal in a dream his future destruction of Italy through a dream with a giant snake; Jupiter unveils to his daughter Venus the future of the Roman empire through the Flavians and Domitian himself; the oracle of Hammon in the African desert prophesies the Roman defeat at Cannae.

The Flavian poet builds his narrative around several key episodes that programmatically set the tone for the whole poem: separation from family, a futuristic distinction between African and Iberian troops in the catalogue, the transgressive nature of Hannibal's struggle with nature and the divine.

The commentary explores each scene in the context of the poetic, philosophical, and historiographic background, with reference also to material culture. The philological and stylistic exegeses aim to reveal the linguistic complexities which colour this fascinating Flavian reconstruction of the topos of 'the epic hero's journey'. The Latin text is presented alongside an English translation and supplemented with maps and images to support understanding the broad historical context of Silius' poem.

Author Biography

Antony Augoustakis, Professor and Head of Classics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,R. Joy Littlewood, Independent scholar, based in Oxford

Antony Augoustakis is the author of Statius, Thebaid 8 (OUP, 2016), Motherhood and the Other: Fashioning Female Power in Flavian Epic (OUP, 2010) and Plautus' Mercator (Bryn Mawr, 2009). He has edited and co-edited several volumes on Flavian epic, Roman comedy, and Late Antiquity. He serves as
editor of The Classical Journal.

R. Joy Littlewood has published commentaries on Ovid's Fasti Book 6 (OUP, 2006), Silius Italicus' Punica Book 7 (Oxford, 2011), and Punica 10 (Oxford, 2017). She has recently completed the fourth volume of J. C. McKeown's commentary on Ovid's Amores.

Table of Contents

GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1. The Political Life and Literary Formation of Silius Italicus
2. Hannibal's Enterprise
2.1. In the Steps of Hercules?
2.2. In the Steps of Aeneas?
3. Hannibal and Imilce
4. Hannibal's Army
4.1. Historiographic Assessment and Poetic Distortion
4.2. Silius' Epic Catalogue of Hannibal's Troops
4.3. Icons of Imperialism in Hannibal's African and Iberian Troop Catalogues
4.4. The Significance of Iberia in the Catalogue
5. Hannibal's Alpine Crossing
5.1. Hannibal's Route and Recent Archaeological Evidence
5.2. Sublimity
5.3. Hannibal and Further Epicurean Postures
6. Divine Prophecy
6.1. Epic Closural Motifs
6.2. Jupiter and Venus
6.3. Hammon's Oracle
7. Language and Style
7.1. Diction and Figures of Speech
7.2. Epic Similes
7.3. Metre and Prosody
8. Text and Transmission
SIGLA, TEXT, TRANSLATION, AND APPARATUS CRITICUS
COMMENTARY