Brill’s Companion to Silius Italicus ed. by Antony Augoustakis (review)

Silius Italicus’ Punica has deservedly found rehabilitation and scholarly attention in recent years. Silius stages the second Punic War (218–201 BC) as a conflict between Jupiter and Juno, who support Scipio and Hannibal respectively. The two generals thus stand in the same tradition of opponents as do Achilles and Hector and Aeneas and Turnus. Silius’ overbearing use of intertexts turns his work into a feast of intertextuality and often the pleasure of reading Silius lies in recognizing a particular—frequently Vergilian—scene serving him as model for his work. After Augoustakis’ introductory chapter outlining Silius’ life and times and the scholarly issues at stake, the volume’s contributors address all these issues (and more) in three sections entitled “Context and Intertext,” “Themes and Images,” and “Reception and Criticism.”

The first section’s initial two chapters by Pomeroy and Gibson examine Silius’ use of and relationship with his sources and historiography in general. Silius adopts and adapts features of historiography such as speech presentation, narrative structure, ideas of historical progress and decline, topography, and ethnography, hereby engaging with historiographers far beyond his obvious source in Livy such as Thucydides and Polybius. The following four chapters in this section shed light on Silius’ relationship to his epic predecessors. Ganiban examines the shadow the Vergilian Dido casts over Silius’ epic and draws a line of history that links two doomed Carthaginian leaders, Dido and Hannibal, through literary and mythological connections. Klaassen looks at the characteristics of Vergilian and Homeric heroes that have been incorporated into the Punica’s generals Hannibal and Scipio: Hannibal is both an Aeneas in invading Italy and a Turnus in losing the war, Scipio both Aeneas and Odysseus. The following chapters look at Silius’ relationship with other imperial epics. Marks traces images of civil war in the conflict spelled out by Silius and shows that Lucan’s Caesar and Pompey, too, have stood as models for Silius’ main characters. Lovatt tackles the underexplored question of cross-fertilization among Flavian epicists (as their chronology is disputed, however, no certain claims can be made).

These four chapters in particular will be of interest to those teaching Roman Epic or Epic through the Ages courses as they help to situate Silius in the epic tradition.

The next section, “Themes and Images,” by far the largest section in the book, divides into four sub-categories dealing with “Exemplary Heroism,” “Ekphrasis and Imagery,” “Gender,” and “Epic and Society.” The fine chapters on exemplarity and heroism in particular offer rich and stimulating readings, which, however, work on the level of research papers rather than introductory companion pieces. They will certainly attract the advanced reader of Silius seeking to explore topics such as the role of Hercules as heroic model for Hannibal and Scipio (Asso) or how the figure of Scipio fits into the (post) Vergilian lack of definition of epic heroes (Tipping). Fucecchi expands this discussion to the exemplary roles and heroic models played and offered by Fabius and Marcellus (among others), while Ariemma shifts the focus to Varro, who, making decisions detrimental to the Roman state, is fashioned as a “Hannibal” within Rome.

The section on ecphrasis and imagery closes in on Silius’ epic technique through his descriptions of art, artifacts, and seascapes. Harrison examines the narratological significance of Silius’ description of the temples of Dido and Hercules, respectively, Hannibal’s shield, and Hasdrubal’s cloak, as well as a further temple at Liternum for creating internal and external analepsis and prolepsis. This chapter together with Manolaraki’s exploration of the symbolism of water-scapes and Cowan’s musings on the importance of counterfactual narratives and alternative histories (“what if”) within the Punica will stimulate and delight the literary minded and provide food for thought and further research.

In the Gender section, Keith explores how Silius plays on Orientalist and sexist stereotypes when he paints the Carthaginians as feminized and an instrument for female action (think Juno or Dido), while emphasizing the...