After the two commentaries by François Ripoll/Jean Soubiran and Gianfranco Nuzzo, Charles McNelis now offers the third and most comprehensive complete commentary on Statius‘ Achilleid appearing in this century (with about 300 pages of commentary proper for 1167 lines).[1] It exhibits all the virtues of a classical commentary—but first things first.
The book opens with a 36-page introduction that covers all the expected topics like the author’s life and works, themes and structure (with an additional section pp. 9-12 on sexuality and gender in the Achilleid, as these are indeed very prominent subjects), literary and mythological backgrounds, language, style and meter, and reception and transmission. The Achilleid’s reception gains quite a bit of attention (almost 6 pages), and rightly so, because interesting cases of reception appear, like the medieval Irish epic Taín Bó Cúailnge. The section on themes and structure (pp. 3–9) is rich in content and clearly set out; nevertheless, maybe an additional tabular overview would have been a helpful addition (see e.g. Ripoll/Soubiran 98f. or Dilke 8f.). Concerning the text, it is impressive to note that more than 40 manuscripts (out of over 200 surviving manuscripts) have been collated by McNelis (p. 35), facilitated by the Digital Achilleid website (https://achilleid.unige.ch).
The Latin text features a detailed apparatus in which the readings of the eight most important manuscripts are regularly presented (just for the sake of comparison: Ripoll/Soubiran have no apparatus, Nuzzo’s apparatus is comparable in its coverage of the main manuscripts). It is accompanied by a clear and elegant English translation that tries to remain as close as possible to the text but opts for an idiomatic expression when necessary (see e.g. 1.901 “dasne?” rendered as “Do you agree?”).
The commentary proper provides an average ratio of about one page of commentary for four lines of text. The text is separated into lemmata comprising from one to four lines that are quoted in full, a practice that in fact has the same Latin text printed twice in the same book, but allows for more convenient usage. Similarly, the ample quotation of relevant parallels instead of just referring to them is to my mind a great advantage and provides a very reader-friendly service. The lemmata present a wealth of information concerning language, style, models, mythological background, metre, textual problems, realia and, from time to time, reception (see e.g. the reference to Dante on p. 199, ad 1.212–216). This wealth is well-organized and easy to navigate. Each new section of the poem is introduced by an overview that balances the lemmata-based approach and takes the whole of the poem or scene into account. McNelis is very good at incorporating the material accumulated by previous commentaries and other scholarly works while still preserving his own approach. Several unifying threads run through this commentary, especially Statius’ relationship to Homer and Ovid and the themes of ambiguity and gender. There is almost everywhere something new to be learned that you would not find in another commentary (see e.g. the notes on p. 310, ad 1.625–627 on dextra); in discussions of textual matters McNelis shows a very thoughtful and convincing approach (see e.g. p. 395, ad 2.60–262 on vetitas/veritas). Of course, there are passages and interpretations where one might disagree (e.g. I would rather follow Ripoll/Soubiran in the interpretation of culpae in 1.562; p. 370, ad 1.912–915 the statement “that Thetis’ words are in Lycomedes’ head” seems to me misleading because Thetis’ words that are referred to (1.385) were not uttered in Lycomedes’ presence). But apart from such details the commentary is absolutely reliable, well-written and extremely helpful.
The ensuing bibliography with its more than 30 pages is full and quite up to date; unfortunately, the last two monographs by Julene Abad Del Vecchio and Björn Sigúrjonsson appeared too late for consideration.[2] Following the bibliography there is a short but helpful general index (instead of an index locorum McNelis refers to the literary models’ section in the introduction with its copious footnotes, pp. 21–25).
In summary, it is safe to say that McNelis has succeeded in writing a reference work for decades to come. There are several commentaries on the Achilleid available, each one with its own strengths, and they will remain useful since no commentary can be exhaustive. But guided by McNelis’ commentary any reader of the Achilleid can set out to a fascinating journey through an incredibly rich poem.
Notes
[1] François Ripoll / Jean Soubiran, Stace. Achilléide, Louvain 2008; Gianfranco Nuzzo, Publio Papinio Stazio. Achilleide, Palermo 2012. About the first third is covered by the detailed commentary by Renée Uccellini (L’arrivo di Achille a Sciro: Saggio di commenti a Stazio, Achilleide I, 1-396, Pisa 2012). Apart from several editions with annotations Dilke’s commentary stands out in the 20th century (O.A.W. Dilke, Statius: Achilleid, Cambridge 1954).
[2] Juelene Abad Del Vecchio, The Dark Side of Statius’ Achilleid, Cambridge 2024; Björn Sigurjónsson, Sic notus Achilles? Episches Narrativ und Intertextualität in Statius‘ Achilleis, Tübingen 2023.