A rising area of interest in studies of Flavian literature is its engagement with ancient philosophy. Building on the notion that opposition to Nero’s principate was grounded in Stoic principles, scholars have turned their attention to the importance of philosophy for post-Neronian literary and political expression.[1] Such studies have tended to focus on Latin epic, epigram, and lyric. This is also true for Agri’s monograph, which establishes the centrality of Stoic thought to Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica, Statius’ Thebaid, and Silius Italicus’ Punica by examining these epics’ representations of fear.
A revision and expansion of the author’s 2010 PhD dissertation, the book’s aims are two-fold: firstly, to emphasise the importance of Stoic thought in Flavian epic as evident from descriptions of emotions, especially fear; and, secondly, to demonstrate how this fear functions as a catalyst for (further) turbulent passions, such as anger. In so doing, Agri builds on earlier work about emotions in Flavian epic, including studies that explore Seneca’s influence on character psychology and depictions of (excessive) anger. Most of these studies, however, focus on a single Flavian epic. Until now there has been no book-length study that examines Stoically informed emotions and their shaping of the Flavian epic corpus more widely. It is therefore Agri’s intention to ‘address a considerable gap in the scholarship and to offer a renewed opportunity to explore how emotions, and fear in particular, shaped Flavian epic narratives’ (p. 11). To this end, her study primarily focuses on the epics’ Stoically inflected depictions of leadership, tyrannical and non-tyrannical, and on the relations between the choices of the human protagonists and the composition of the literary cosmos.
For Agri, this ambitious project necessitates the combination of Stoic philosophy with the analysis of multi-generic literary tropes and relevant socio-political and cultural issues, such as the (psychological) aftermath of the civil war of 69 CE and the rise of a dynasty of new—and potentially tyrannical —emperors. In order to provide a framework for these many-sided interpretations, the introduction features no fewer than eight sections that are dedicated to overviews and explanations of various significant topics, including ancient interactions between poetry and philosophy, Stoic treatments of emotion, kingship, and tyranny, and poignant contemporary events such as the so-called ‘Stoic Opposition’. These thoroughly footnoted sections provide valuable introductions for readers wishing to familiarise themselves with specific aspects of Stoicism and Flavian culture. Their relation to each other and their relevance to the book’s larger project, however, remain comparatively understated until the introduction’s final section, which sets forth the structure of Agri’s argument (pp. 40-42). Missing from the introduction is dedicated discussion and definition of the Latin lexicon associated with fear. Instead, the reader is referred—by way of footnote 168 on p. 40—to two other relevant studies and to Agri’s own 2010 PhD dissertation, which proved inaccessible (at least to this reviewer). As a result, the reader only gets a sense of the book’s approach, and the potential differences between metus, pavor, and timor,[2] once they work through its case studies—which comprise Chapters 1 to 4.
The first chapter, ‘Fear in Flavian Representations of Epic Tyrants’, argues that fear reveals tyrants as incapable leaders who resort to anger in order to reclaim political agency. As the only chapter that examines all three main Flavian epics (the other chapters focus on one epic each), it shows how Valerius’ Pelias, Statius’ Polynices and Creon, and Silius’ Hannibal are vulnerable to excessive emotions, including envy. These leaders’ inability to control their emotions is conveyed through a variety of emasculating strategies, such as animal similes. Discussion of Statius’ Creon is particularly effective. Agri convincingly shows how the Theban king’s supplicant behaviour effeminises him through his alignment with the mourning women of Thebaid 12, suggesting that Creon fails to reassert epic and masculine virtus despite his move from private grief to public anger.
Chapter 2 moves from the relation between fear and envy towards analysis of the tension between fear and hope, which Agri identifies as the two ‘driving forces’ of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica.[3] This tension is examined through analysis of the epic’s prophecies, which Agri argues inspire fear more than they do hope. The Cyzicus episode, for example, is seen to demonstrate the divine engineering of fate in Stoic thought. This famous passage features the Argonauts’ unknowing return to their previous hosts: assuming hostility, the Argonauts battle the Doliones in the dark. Considering its emphasis on false beliefs resulting from the Argonauts’ and Doliones’ inability to see and distinguish friend from foe, it is a shame that this episode is not read more explicitly with attention to the importance of cognition (and assent to impressions) in Stoic thought, especially since flawed beliefs are highlighted in the book’s introduction and epilogue for their importance to the epics’ characters and their actions.
Where fear and hope motivate the narrative in the Argonautica, Statius’ Thebaid is driven by anger (ira). Starting from the prominent genesis of hatred in this epic,[4] Agri dedicates Chapter 3 to analysis of the ways in which protagonists’ anger infects the cosmos through Stoic sumpatheia. The chapter’s identification of the Furies as key to Statius’ poetic treatment of Stoic psychology is particularly valuable. On the one hand, Tisiphone is an ‘agent moved by the will of others’ (p. 152), including Oedipus, Dis, and Juno, but on the other hand, the Fury claims the acts of the Olympian gods for herself, happy to take full credit for the epic’s narrative of nefas. Where some have seen this unusual divine apparatus as a reason to recognise Stoic influence only or primarily in the epic’s depiction of passions, Agri, recognising the link between human choices and causality, argues that the epic’s Stoicism does in fact extend to the design of its epic world. It is precisely the characters’ inability to control their emotions and subsequent choices that co-create and perpetuate the nefarious world of the Thebaid.
The final chapter, dedicated to Silius Italicus’ Punica, expands on the book’s scope by examining the potentially beneficial uses of fear, rather than its negative workings. Building on the idea that Carthage offers a tool of reflection on Roman state unity and identity,[5] Agri argues that Silius questions the limits of metus hostilis for the purpose of state cohesion and preservation. Silius depicts crises of leadership in the Roman and Carthaginian senates by conflating various images related to the soul, including Plato’s charioteer who controls a chariot pulled by an obedient white horse and an unruly black horse; and the image of a single, impulsive horse struggling against its rational driver. While some case studies persuade more than others (the equine imagery is not always as present as it needs to be), the chapter convinces in its observation that, for Silius, the greatest storm that the Roman soul ever had to weather was not its fear of internal or external enemies, but ‘that of its own passions’ (p. 192).
In lieu of a conclusion, the epilogue restates the book’s main objectives and identifies some common threads. These threads especially concern the impact of fear on power, gender, and agency. The final pages also reaffirm the deeply Senecan footprint of Flavian epic emotions, as demonstrated by scholarship. One of Agri’s important advancements of the field is her foregrounding of the epics’ sustained interaction not only with Seneca’s drama, but also with his prose works as well as other philosophical prose, from Aristotle and Plato to Cicero and Plutarch. As such, this book joins recent and current efforts to expand our understanding of the dynamics of intertextuality within and beyond Latin poetry.
Among the book’s highlights are its observations on manifestations of power and Stoic control in relation to gender. I have already mentioned Agri’s insightful analysis of Statius’ Creon; also valuable is Chapter 2’s discussion of Valerius’ Medea, which makes a significant contribution to our understanding of this gender-unstable witch as Stoically resisting the tyranny of passions. The book’s sporadic references to modern political theory I found less persuasive, at least in their execution. Hannah Arendt’s work on exile and totalitarianism might well usefully inform the fears that are experienced by Flavian epic tyrants, but the universal application of a single citation to all Flavian epic tyrants seems overly hasty, and overall the idea remains underdeveloped (pp. 54, 133). There are also several discussions that would have benefited from more engagement with recent work on the philosophical dimensions of Flavian epics, including their evocation of not only Stoic but also Epicurean thought. This is true for the Argonauts’ repeated misinterpretations of the cosmos,[6] but also, for example, for Chapter 3’s discussions of the Thebaid’s Epicurean and/or unphilosophical underworld.[7] An explanation for the book’s lack of engagement with Epicureanism should presumably be sought in its strictly Stoic focus, and Agri certainly does not claim that her analyses are exhaustive (p. 197),—but we must not forget that the Flavian epics exist in explicit conversation with both philosophies. Perhaps a point of entry into further enquiry, as suggested in the epilogue.
The careful reader will have noted that this book’s definition of Flavian epic excludes Statius’ Achilleid. Agri’s justification for this definition is that the latter is ‘only fragmentarily preserved’ (p. 2 n. 5). The relevant footnote features a lengthy catalogue of scholarship on the Achilleid, but it does not acknowledge that some of the scholars listed argue in favour of the work’s internal coherence and against its characterisation as a fragment.[8] Of course, a study like Agri’s that brings together three lengthy epics is demanding in scope already. Hopefully this book will inspire further work on fear in the Achilleid as well. After all, this densely allusive little epic explores Jupiter’s fear of losing his power and Thetis’ motherly fear of losing her son to anger, war, and death.
The book is generally well-produced (though there are several errors in the type), and both bibliography and index form helpful resources. Overall, this ambitious project forms a welcome and necessary contribution to studies of philosophical currents in Latin poetry, including Flavian epic. Especially important is Agri’s finding that flawed beliefs are crucial to the formation of passions and thereby to character agency across the Flavian epics. This notion, among several others, should indeed encourage us to ‘further unravel the threads between the furor poeticus and epic wisdom’ (p. 197).
Notes
[1] See e.g. the 2018 Phoenix issue 72.3/4 on Philosophical Currents in Flavian Literature, edited by Alison Keith.
[2] See especially p. 40 n. 168; p. 49 n. 16; p. 66 n. 76; p. 67 n. 79; and p. 189 n. 51.
[3] Important here is T. Stover (2012), Epic and Empire in Vespasianic Rome: A New Reading of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[4] E. Fantham (1997), ‘“Envy and Fear the Begetter of Hatred”: Statius’ Thebaid and the Genesis of Hatred’, in S. Braund and C. Gill (eds), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature: 185–212. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[5] Most foundationally: R. Marks (2005), From Republic to Empire: Scipio Africanus in the Punica of Silius Italicus. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang; and C. Stocks (2014), The Roman Hannibal: Remembering the Enemy in Silius Italicus’ Punica. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.
[6] D. Krasne (2018), ‘Distance Learning: Competing Philosophies at Sea in Book 2 of Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica’, Phoenix 72: 239-265.
[7] For example: P. R. Hardie (2013), ‘Flavian Epic and the Sublime’, in G. Manuwald and A. Voigt (eds.), Flavian Epic Interactions: 125-138. Berlin: De Gruyter; and L. Bennardo (2018), ‘Dominique imitantia mores: Pluto’s Unphilosophic Underworld in Statius Thebaid 8’, Phoenix 72: 271-292.
[8] Most importantly P. J. Heslin (2005), The Transvestite Achilles: Gender and Genre in Statius’ Achilleid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.