Considered with disdain and hostility by modern scolarship in the first half of the twentieth century, Silius Italicus is now back in fashion, with Brill's Companion to Silius Italicus one of the most remarkable indications of this renewed interest. Silius' great narrative skill, his learned and ingenious intertextual research, and his historical, social and axiological thought are all prominent in this excellent set of essays, though the aesthetic and poetic dimensions of the Punica could perhaps have been further explored. The book is organized into four parts, rather passe-partout and not properly Silian, but which introduce stimulating debates for the reader as the authors, on similar points, offer diverging opinions (the figure of Scipio for instance, and the relationships with Domitian). They are: Part A, ‘Introduction’; Part B, ‘Context and Intertext’; Part C, ‘Themes and Images’; Part D, ‘Reception and Criticism’. The book also contains a comprehensive bibliography and useful Indices.
The first part introduces the author, his reputation, and the text of the Punica (chronology, intertextuality, structure), and offers a clear and interesting exploration of the different theories and analysis of the recent bibliography on the poem. The second part considers the relationships between Silius and his many sources and intertexts. Pomeroy reminds his reader of the difficulties in identifying the non-Livian authors which Silius used in his treatment of historical episodes. He then focuses on Silius' use of ‘Thucydidean narratives’ in Livy which reflects literary debates and different ways of understanding historical causality, revealing ethical rather than political aims. Gibson extends the discussion on the sources of Silius, and, using Quintilian's definition of historia as carmen solutum, he explores how Silius exploits both poetic and historical predecessors at the same time. He focuses on the digression on Sicily in Book 14, with an erudite and detailed examination of Silian allusions to, and merging of, previous poets and historians in his description. The next diptych in this part deals with the relationships between Silius and Virgil. Ganiban explores the rôle of Dido in the characterization of Hannibal and his tragic heroism. Mythological past and epic traditions guide Hannibal's decisions in the Punica, much more than historical motivations: Dido's curse and Juno's hatred motivate his action throughout the epic, but also implicate and enclose him in a destructive dynamic of defeat. Hannibal, as a blind hero, always looks back to the past and ignores, unlike Virgil's Aeneas, the weight of fate on the future. Kennedy Classen tries to rehabilitate Silius' originality when rewriting his models and shows how he combines Homeric and Virgilian models in Hannibal's and Scipio's characterization. The echoes in Books 12 and 13 of Homeric nekyia and Virgilian catabasis are examined in detail. Hannibal is compared to Aeneas, Achilles and Ulysses but fails to reincarnate them, being rather a new Turnus, unlike Scipio, who is a true new Aeneas, Ulysses and Achilles. Marks contributes to the exploration of Lucan intertextuality in the Punica, suggesting a symmetrical frame (perhaps too symmetrical) for the Punica, based on the allusions to Lucan's epic, and assimilating the Punic wars to a civil war. Roman defeats due to the self-destructive nature of the city in Books 1 to 10, and Carthaginian defeats for the same reasons in Books 11 to 17 twice replay the Pompey-Caesar Civil War (a ‘conflict of heads’ for world hegemony in both epics) and Scipio is a parallel to Domitian in guaranteeing peace and security after civil wars. Lovatt explores the relationship between Silius and Statius, basing her analysis on the example of the games in Thebaid 6 and Punica 16. Her aim is not to prove which one wrote first, but to explore the possibilities of interactions between the two poets, in both directions, advocating looking for readings ‘which offer the most interesting story’. If her suggestions are not always convincing, they nonetheless highlight the poetic competition between Flavian poets and the deep differences between two literary and ideological worlds.
The third section covers a range of topics. Asso explores the figure of Hercules as heroic model for Hannibal and Scipio, paradoxically and surprisingly assuming that the unphilosophical weakness of Hercules contributes to making him a paradigm of heroism for Roman men. Tipping approaches exemplarity through Scipio, ‘the true hero of the Punica’ whose ‘status as exemplary Roman is uncertain’; his models and parallels are all marked by duality: Hercules, Bacchus, Alexander, Domitian. Tipping portrays Scipio, eager for personal power and glory, as an exemplary figure of republican individualism which leads to civil war, the downfall of the Republic, and imperial tyranny. The ambiguity of the hero and allusions to Lucan create for Tipping, unlike Marks, a negative view of Domitian: repetitions, comparisons and substitutions in the Punica reveal a pattern of Roman history, from Republic to Empire, where the republican collective spirit is overshadowed by power-hungry individuals encouraged by the Roman ethic of competition. Fucecchi continues the exploration of Silius' characters with Fabius and Marcellus; despite divergences, the two share important behavioural analogies, which build a single model of heroism that Scipio will subsequently assume. Ariemma looks at Varro as a demagogue in Books 8–10, Roman consul and worst enemy of Rome, whose character is built up through contrast with other Roman generals and similarity to Hannibal. Harrison considers Silius' skill in writing ecphrasis in the Punica, discussing five objects (Dido's temple, Hannibal's shield, Hercules' temple at Gades, the temple at Liternum, and Hasdrubal's cloak), which all stress the future defeats and humiliations of Hannibal with ironic effects for the reader who knows Hannibal's future, when the Punic hero reads self-glorifying scenes. Manolaraki explores tides in the Punica: in Book 3, Hannibal's contemplation of Atlantic tides at Gades provides a recurrent motif which contrasts the author's knowledge with Hannibal's ignorance, and underlines the strong thematic, symbolic and narrative unity of the epic in spite of its digressive appearance. Cowan appeals ingeniously to theories of counterfactual history and highlights Silius' originality in his ‘what if’ narratives. These alternative narratives do not reinforce the idea of determinism and fatum proper to historical epic, but instead introduce a Silian poetics of contingency, in a paradoxical tension with the teleological tendencies of epic narrative. His demonstration both underlines the importance of great heroes, able to modify world history, and the nature and structure of the Punica, based on successive turning-points where history, and narrative, could turn and take a different path. Keith offers a reading in which Silius opposes Roman West, masculine and loyal, with Carthaginian East, feminine and treacherous. From this perspective, Hannibal is an instrument for female action: Dido, the ancestor whom he avenges, Juno, who encourages him to fight against Rome, Anna Perenna, who urges him to engage the Romans at Cannae, Asbyte, female partisan of Hannibal, and his wife Imilce. He is a ‘female-focused hero’, and consequently unable to defy Roman power. Finally, Bernstein, through central figures of the Punica — Hannibal, Fabius, Pacuvius and Scipio — considers the relationship between paternal and political authority. Scipio manages private and public obligations most effectively, and, Bernstein argues, is consequently linked by Silius to the ideal emperor, such as Domitian. Bernstein, basing his analysis on the cases of Saguntum and Capua, also discusses the issue of syngeneia, as a potential means of unity between states actually doomed to failure.
The last part of the book deals with the reception of Silius' Punica. Muecke, on Silius' first humanist editors shows how they contributed to the spread of knowledge, and interest in Silius, and thus to his great popularity, with consequences for the whole textual tradition. Dominik explores his subsequent scholarly treatment and the changing attitudes towards Silius, from popularity during the Renaissance to disdain during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the recent shift towards a more positive attitude. His concluding essay brings us back to Augoustakis' introduction, and he outlines current scholarly debates which are at last examining the Punica as a poetic entity.
