An unpublished English translation of the Punica - handout

William Dominik’s chapter traces the development of modern scholarship on Silius Italicus’ Punica, especially in the twentieth century, stressing the shifts in critical attitudes to the poet, in great detail, an important tool for future students of the Punica. Because Silius Italicus arguably has received a more negative press than any other imperial epicist, Dominik examines how these attitudes to the poet began to change gradually, especially in the past ten years. This essay documents the reception of the Punica and the main trends in scholarship on the epic in the modern era.

ANTONY AUGOUSTAKIS and R. JOY LITTLEWOOD (EDS), SILIUS ITALICUS: PUNICA, BOOK 3. Edited, with Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Oxford Commentaries on Flavian Poetry). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. Pp. xvi + 416, illustrations (black and white), maps. ISBN 9780198821281. £157.50/$200.00. While there is no need any longer to call for the rehabilitation of Flavian epic, the resurgence in interest in recent years has resulted in an increasing number of English-language commentaries, including on Silius Italicus' Punica. Counting this new commentary by Antony Augoustakis and R. Joy Littlewood on Punica 3, commentaries on ve books (2, 3, 7, 9 and 10) of this epic have been published by OUP, while two others (on books 13 and 15) are forthcoming in the Oxford Commentaries on Flavian Poetry series. There are probably no two Silian scholars more qualied than A. and L. to write such a commentary. A. and L. have combined their broad knowledge of the epic to produce an erudite commentary on book 3, which revolves around the gure of Hannibal and his famous crossing of the Alps, a narrative replete with an array of exotic places and races, catalogues of troops, dreams and divine prophecies. As has become the norm in this series, A. and L.'s commentary features an introduction, text, translation, commentary, bibliography and indices. The General Introduction (1-62), which is exceptional for its detail and breadth, focuses on Silius' political and literary background as well as gures, events, themes, textual, linguistic and stylistic matters relevant to book 3. Each of the sections (and sub-sections) is prefaced by useful bibliographies. The sensitivity of A. and L. to the literary and historical dynamics of the Punica is evident throughout the introduction. For the Latin text (even-numbered, 66-144) A. and L. use the Teubner edition by J. Delz (ed.), Silius Italici, Punica (1987), which contains innumerable conjectures, besides the fact that corruption mentioned in the apparatus criticus often remains in the text. These considerations theoretically should offer many opportunities for textual emendation. But A. and L. are not primarily interested in textual criticism, as shown in the short treatment of the text and transmission (61-62), the nine changes made to Delz's text (62), the retention of its punctuation, the adoption of its sigla (64-65) in their apparatus criticus, and their modications of Delz's apparatus. A. and L. basically have sacriced close textual criticism for astute literary analysis, which given the authoritative status of Delz's text is exactly what the poem needs at this stage of the Punica's resurgence. The prose translation (odd-numbered, 67-145), which generally is reminiscent in style and in places similar in phrasing to the translation of A. Augoustakis and N. Bernstein, Silius Italicus' 'Punica' (2021), 42-58, is extremely readable and accessible, faithful to the meaning of the Latin text, and therefore will serve the scholar or general reader equally well. In places, though, the use of prose conveys the feeling of a historical genre rather than epic, which could have been resolved by the use of some type of structured verse-form, even free or 'loose' verse. Unlike the previous commentaries of L. on Punica 7 and 10, A. and L. opt not to translate the Latin and Greek cited in the main body, including the lemmata, and footnotes of the commentary, which makes it less accessible for anyone unversed in these languages. A curious aspect of the layout of the facing pages of Latin text (with apparatus criticus) and English translation (66-145) is that each page contains only a half-page of printed text (similarly, maps 1 and 4 are printed on half-pages). The actual commentary itself, like the introduction, is well organised, clear and concise; the detailed notes are full of acute and penetrating observations on the text and context of the Punica. The commentary is divided into sections, each of which consists of an introduction that provides an overview of its content, themes and structure, with Hannibal naturally the main focus of the discussion. The ethnographic and geographical aspects of various gures and groups assume an

Mnemosyne, 2013

2024

In De consulatu Stilichonis, Claudian reworks the war with Gildo into another Second Punic War. He continues this trend in his last two carmina maiora, using the Second Punic War as a framework for the war with Alaric as well. Claudian employs the exemplum of the Second Punic War in order to make an argument about decline and restoration. He draws on the traditional narrative of decline in Roman historiography, which asserts that the Roman Republic declined and fell because, after the fall of Carthage, there was no fear of an enemy to hold Rome back from descending into luxury and avarice and turning on itself in civil war. Claudian utilizes this quintessentially Roman tradition to strengthen his panegyric claim that Rome will be restored by his patron Stilicho. He inverts the formula to argue that, because the Western Empire is beset by usurpers and “barbarians,” the restoration of Roman enemies will lead to a restoration of the glories of the Roman Republic. In doing so, Claudian creates a flexible formula capable of incorporating any crisis into the larger narrative of exemplary Roman history. In chapter 1, I demonstrate how Claudian’s first poem about the war with Gildo deliberately refuses to embrace the Second Punic War narrative an African enemy offers, instead deconstructing the idea of Gildo as a second Hannibal. Chapter 2 explains how Claudian develops his formula of decline and restoration across the three books of De consulatu Stilichonis. The war with Gildo becomes the catalyst for Stilicho’s restoration of the Roman Republic as a new Roman founder. Then, in chapter 3, I examine how Claudian adapts that formula to accommodate the war with Alaric in De bello Getico, arguing that Claudian extrapolates from the more specific rhetoric in Stil. to a broader argument about the moral and renewing qualities that war with a foreign enemy grants to Rome. Finally, I analyze how Claudian’s last panegyric must contend with Alaric’s continued presence as a threat, forcing Claudian to revise and expand the rhetoric of renewing warfare he used in Get.

Silius’s representation of dynasty, parricide, and the imagery of the ensis and sceptrum in the Punica comprises the focus of this chapter. Parricide emerges from Silius’s epic as the paradigmatic crime of civil war, revealing a particularly Flavian preoccupation with the role of discordia within familial and perhaps even dynastic systems. Within the Punica, the ensis and the sceptrum become interlocked images which foreground the violent potential embedded within Rome’s imperial structure. This image system is part of a wider, coherent, and yet still not often recognized strategy on Silius’s part to both distance the nefas of civil war from Flavian pax while simultaneously destabilizing that very distancing strategy. Extracts from editors' introduction: 'The same discourse of domestic and foreign, Roman and Other, also animates this volume’s readings of the Punica, which together identify an array of Silian approaches to the familiar strategy of situating anxieties externally, a strategy which William Dominik (ch. 13) labels “geographical distancing.” (p. 17) 'Dominik (ch. 13) argues that Silius situates multiple points of Roman civil war’s genesis throughout the events of the Second Punic War, from the defeat at Cannae to the eventual defeat of Hannibal, while also painting the portrait of a populus Romanus that already possessed the necessary character to descend into—and welcome—civil strife. (p. 19) 'Dominik (ch. 13) sees Silius as hinting at the apotheosized Vespasian in his closing divinization of Scipio, with the result that Silius’s earlier destabilizations of the positivity of apotheosis, particularly the apotheosis of the “key figure and symbol of civil war,”42 Julius Caesar, also color the poet’s generally-positive images of Vespasian and his dynasty.' (p. 20) (There are 123 references to my name in this edited volume.)

This entry on Silius Italicus features an introduction, biography, textual history, discussion of themes and style of the Punica, critical reception, excerpts from criticism, principal works list, and annotated bibliography.

Silius’s representation of dynasty, parricide, and the imagery of the ensis and sceptrum in the Punica comprises the focus of this chapter. Parricide emerges from Silius’s epic as the paradigmatic crime of civil war, revealing a particularly Flavian preoccupation with the role of discordia within familial and perhaps even dynastic systems. Within the Punica, the ensis and the sceptrum become interlocked images which foreground the violent potential embedded within Rome’s imperial structure. This image system is part of a wider, coherent, and yet still not often recognized strategy on Silius’s part to both distance the nefas of civil war from Flavian pax while simultaneously destabilizing that very distancing strategy. Extracts from editors' introduction: 'The same discourse of domestic and foreign, Roman and Other, also animates this volume’s readings of the Punica, which together identify an array of Silian approaches to the familiar strategy of situating anxieties externally, a strategy which William Dominik (ch. 13) labels “geographical distancing.” (p. 17) 'Dominik (ch. 13) argues that Silius situates multiple points of Roman civil war’s genesis throughout the events of the Second Punic War, from the defeat at Cannae to the eventual defeat of Hannibal, while also painting the portrait of a populus Romanus that already possessed the necessary character to descend into— and welcome—civil strife. (p. 19) 'Dominik (ch. 13) sees Silius as hinting at the apotheosized Vespasian in his closing divinization of Scipio, with the result that Silius’s earlier destabilizations of the positivity of apotheosis, particularly the apotheosis of the “key figure and symbol of civil war,”42 Julius Caesar, also color the poet’s generally-positive images of Vespasian and his dynasty.' (p. 20) (There are 123 references to my name in this edited volume.)

Classical World, 2014