Thebaid by Statius

First transcribed:Thebais, c. 90 c e. (English translation, 1767)

Type of work: Poetry

Type of plot: Epic

Time of plot: Antiquity

Locale: Argos, Nemea, and Thebes

Principal characters

• Oedipus, the deposed king of Thebes
• Jocasta, his wife and mother
• Eteocles, ,
• Polynices, ,
• Antigone, and
• Ismene, their children
• Creon, Jocasta’s brother
• Menoeceus, his son
• Adrastus, the king of Argos
• Argia, his daughter, Polynices’ wife
• Tydeus, ,
• Capaneus, ,
• Amphiaraus, ,
• Hippomedon, and
• Parthenopaeus, Argive heroes of the march against Thebes
• Hypsipyle, the former queen of Lemnos, a slave

The Poem:

After the fall of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polynices, the two sons of Oedipus and Jocasta, are to alternate as rulers. The plan is doomed to failure because Oedipus calls down the wrath of the Furies upon his unnatural sons. The first year of the kingship falling to Eteocles, Polynices goes into temporary exile in Argos. There he quarrels with Tydeus, a great warrior and hero, but King Adrastus, obeying the prompting of an oracle, settles the dispute by betrothing one of his daughters to each of the young men.

At the end of a year, however, Eteocles refuses to step aside in favor of Polynices, according to the agreement between them. Argia, the wife of Polynices, then persuades her father to aid the prince in asserting his right to the Theban throne. Tydeus is first dispatched as an envoy to the city. Jealous of the fame of the young warrior, Eteocles sets an ambush for Tydeus, who kills all of his attackers except one. The survivor, Maeon, returns to tell Eteocles what happened and then kills himself.

The march against Thebes begins. At Nemea the army is halted by a great drought, but the Argives are saved from their distress when Hypsipyle, the one-time queen of Lemnos before the great massacre there and reduced to a slave entrusted with the care of King Lycurgus’s small son, guides them to a stream that still flows. When a snake bites her infant charge, the Argives protect her from the king’s anger and, in observance of the boy’s funeral, institute the Nemean games. On the arrival of the army before the walls of Thebes, Jocasta and her daughters appear to plead with Polynices in an effort to prevent bloodshed. The battle is joined, however, when two tigers attack the driver of Amphiaraus’s chariot; Amphiaraus himself disappears into the underworld when the earth suddenly opens and swallows him alive. In an engagement with the Thebans, Tydeus falls mortally wounded; he dies while gnawing the skull of his foe. The Argive heroes are killed one by one, fighting valiantly but powerless against the might of the gods. Capaneus, who rested from battle to challenge the justice of the gods, is struck by one of Jove’s own thunderbolts as he attempts to scale the wall of the city. In a hand-to-hand combat, Eteocles and Polynices kill each other. Only King Adrastus survives. The war ends with the intervention of King Theseus of Athens, who was moved by the prayers of the Argive women. Creon dies at the hands of King Theseus; his son, Menoeceus, previously listens to the words of the oracle and throws himself from the city wall.

Bibliography

Bernstein, Neil W. In the Image of the Ancestors: Narratives of Kinship in Flavian Epic. Toronto, Ont.: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Statius’s Thebaid and Achilleid are two of only four extant epics from the Flavian period, 69-96 c.e. Bernstein examines how the depictions of kinship in these four works differs from earlier epics, placing the epics in the context of social, political, and aesthetic changes during the early Roman Empire. Chapter 3 discusses kinship as destiny and as gender in the Thebaid.

Ganiban, Randall T. Statius and Virgil: “The Thebaid” and the Reinterpretation of the “Aeneid.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Examines the relationship of Vergil’s Aeneid to Thebaid. Argues that in Thebaid, Statius adapted themes, scenes, and ideas from Vergil’s epic in order to show that the Aeneid inadequately depicted monarchy. Maintains that the horror, spectacle, and violence in Thebaid is Statius’s critique of the moral and political virtues in the Aeneid.

Lovatt, Helen. Statius and Epic Games: Sport, Politics, and Poetics in “The Thebaid.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Focuses on Statius’s use of athletic games in book 6 of the epic. Argues that each event in the games depicts a theme, such as cosmic disruption, national identity, masculinity, war, and kingship.

Mendell, C. W. Latin Poetry: The Age of Rhetoric and Satire. Hamden, Conn.: Archon Books, 1967. Establishes the context and explains the aesthetic values of the era in which Statius lived.

Smolenaars, Johannes J. L., Harm-Jan van Dam, and Ruurd R. Nauta, eds. The Poetry of Statius. Boston: Brill, 2008. Several of the essays in this collection examine Thebaid, including discussions of the battle narrative, the character of Jupiter in book 1, rituals of succession in the poem, and how Statius adapts the tradition of Jocasta’s suicide in Greek and Roman drama.

Statius. Thebaid. Translated by A. D. Melville. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. This very accurate translation is written in a graceful and formal blank verse that preserves the poetic quality of the original. An introduction explains and justifies Thebaid with enthusiasm.

Tillyard, E. M. W. The English Epic and Its Background. 1954. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966. Deals with a number of epics from the ancient world and the Renaissance. Places Thebaid in the broad context of a tradition extending more than two thousand years.

Vessey, David. Statius and “The Thebaid.” New York: Cambridge University Press, 1973. One of the largest and most comprehensive studies of Thebaid by an enthusiast of the poem.