Punica (poem)
Encyclopedia
The Punica is a Latin epic poem
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 in seventeen books in dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry...

 written by Silius Italicus
Silius Italicus
Silius Italicus, in full Tiberius Catius Asconius Silius Italicus , was a Roman consul, orator, and Latin epic poet of the 1st century CE,...

 (ca. 28–ca. 103 AD) comprising some twelve thousand lines (12,202, to be exact, if one includes a probably spurious passage in book 8). It is the longest surviving Latin poem from antiquity. Its theme is the Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

 and the conflict between the two great generals Hannibal and Scipio Africanus
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...

.

Composition

The dates of the Punica's composition are not entirely clear. There is external evidence for composition dates from some of the epigrams of Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

. Martial 4.14, a poem dated to 88 AD, describes Silius' work on the Punica, mentioning Scipio and Hannibal as the subjects of the poem. 7.63, dated to 92 AD also describes his work on the poem. Two passages of internal evidence also help date the Punica. At 3.600ff. during Jupiter's prophecy about the future of Rome, describes significant events from the Flavian
Flavian dynasty
The Flavian dynasty was a Roman Imperial Dynasty, which ruled the Roman Empire between 69 and 96 AD, encompassing the reigns of Vespasian , and his two sons Titus and Domitian . The Flavians rose to power during the civil war of 69, known as the Year of the Four Emperors...

 dynasty and the life of Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...

, such as the death of Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...

, Titus
Titus
Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....

' destruction of Jerusalem, Domitian's adoption of the title Germanicus (83 AD), and the burning of the Capitoline temple in 69 AD. Thus the passage puts a terminus post quem for Book 3 at 83 AD. At 14.685-88, the mention of a contemporary vir who has brought peace to the world and put a stop to illegal theft has been interpreted as referring to the accesion of Nerva
Nerva
Nerva , was Roman Emperor from 96 to 98. Nerva became Emperor at the age of sixty-five, after a lifetime of imperial service under Nero and the rulers of the Flavian dynasty. Under Nero, he was a member of the imperial entourage and played a vital part in exposing the Pisonian conspiracy of 65...

 in 96 AD, although this reference to Nerva has been disputed. Thus, composition dates for the poem must be set at c. 83 to c. 96 AD, although since those dates do not include the first two or final three books, they must remain approximate. The poem is a work of Silius' old age, and thus his time spent at his Campanian villas collecting antiques and giving recitations, presumably of the Punica. According to the epigrams of Martial cited above, the poem met with some success and was compared with the Aeneid.

Poetic models and historical sources

Silius, as a poet of historical epic, had to make use of both historical sources and poetic models. Livy
Livy
Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

 is considered his single most important historical source, however, Silius differs his work from Livy's by often embellishing themes which are only briefly treated in Livy and altering the focus of his narrative. It is known that Silius also used other historians as sources. Silius should not be viewed as a simple transmitter of his historical sources, as "Livy in verse", but should be viewed as a poet who, while making use of historians, is not bound by the rules of historiography but rather of poetry.

In choosing a historical subject, the Second Punic War
Second Punic War
The Second Punic War, also referred to as The Hannibalic War and The War Against Hannibal, lasted from 218 to 201 BC and involved combatants in the western and eastern Mediterranean. This was the second major war between Carthage and the Roman Republic, with the participation of the Berbers on...

, Silius had many poetic predecessors. From the time of Naevius
Naevius
-People:* Gnaeus Naevius, poet and dramatist 3rd century BC* Naevius Sutorius Macro, praetorian prefect under Tiberius and Caligula...

 onwards every great military struggle in which the Romans had been engaged had found its poet. Naevius' influence cannot be gauged because of the almost total loss of his poem on the First Punic War
First Punic War
The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic. For 23 years, the two powers struggled for supremacy in the western Mediterranean Sea, primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters but also to a lesser extent in...

. Silius specifically names Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

, Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, and Ennius
Ennius
Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent...

 as his epic inspiration. Homer is mentioned at 13.778-797, where Silius has Scipio meet his shade in the underworld. Of Homer Silius' sybil
Sybil
In antiquity, the oracular seeresses of the Ancient Near East and the Mediterranean were referred to by the Greek term "sibyls". In modern times, when "Sibyl" is adopted for a woman's name, the conventional spelling is "Sybil".-People:...

 praises Homer as the preeminent, universal, and divine poet who made Troy
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...

, (i.e. Rome) famous in song, saying "his [Homer's] poetry embraced the earth, sea, stars, and shades and he rivaled the Muses in song and Phoebus in glory," to which Scipio replies "If Fate would allow this poet to sing of Roman deeds, for all the world to hear, how much deeper an impression the same deeds would make upon posterity if Homer sang of them." Ennius is a character in Book 12 of the Punica (12.387-414) where he participates in a battle in Sardinia
Sardinia
Sardinia is the second-largest island in the Mediterranean Sea . It is an autonomous region of Italy, and the nearest land masses are the French island of Corsica, the Italian Peninsula, Sicily, Tunisia and the Spanish Balearic Islands.The name Sardinia is from the pre-Roman noun *sard[],...

. Silius says that his account of Ennius' fight is his attempt to "hand down to long ages noble deeds, too little known, of a great man." He describes Ennius' birth, his prowess in war, and has Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

 prophesy his future, saying "he [Ennius] shall be the first to sing of Roman wars in noble verse, exalting their commanders to the skies; he shall teach Helicon
Helicon
Mount Helicon is a mountain in the region of Thespiai in Boeotia, Greece, celebrated in Greek mythology. With an elevation of , it is located just off the Gulf of Corinth.-Greek mythology:...

 to repeat the sound of Roman poetry..."

Virgil is mentioned at 8.593-594, where Silius says of Virgil's hometown Mantua
Mantua
Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

 that it was "home of the Muses, raised to the sky by immortal verse, and a match for the lyre of Homer." Indeed, Virgil is considered Silius' most pervasive influence. His contemporaries Pliny
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 and Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

 discuss his almost crazed devotion to the spirit of Virgil (whom Silius is known to have worshipped as a god and whose tomb he bought and repaired) and often compare his poetry to the works of Virgil. Silius employs constantly Virgilian images, similes, tropes, and elements (such as his nekyia or the historically-themed shield of Hannibal) in the Punica, and hardly a page goes by without some significant allusion to the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

. Finally, Lucan
Lucan
Lucan is the common English name of the Roman poet Marcus Annaeus Lucanus.Lucan may also refer to:-People:*Arthur Lucan , English actor*Sir Lucan the Butler, Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend...

 is a significant model for Silius, although Silius differs dramatically from Lucan's historical epic by his use of the divine machinery. Frederick Ahl
Frederick Ahl
Frederick M. Ahl is a professor of classics and comparative literature at Cornell University He is known for his work in Greek and Roman epic and drama, and the intellectual history of Greece and Rome, as well as for translations of tragedy and Latin epic.-Life and career:Ahl studied classics at...

 posits that Silius construed his epic as occupying the historical and poetic midpoint between the Aeneid and the Bellum Civile
Bellum civile
Bellum civile, or civil war in Latin, may refer to:* Another title for Pharsalia by the Roman poet Lucan* The Commentarii de Bello Civili , telling events of the Civil War until immediately after Pompey's death in Egypt by G. Julius Cæsar...

, forming a trilogy of poems on Roman history. Silius is closest to Lucan in his treatment of historical description, especially geography and battlefields, his focus on the macabre and violence, and his stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...

 tone.

Contents

Book 1
The poem opens with phrase ordior arma "I set in order the arms" and tells how the poet's theme is the Second Punic War, setting up the conflict as the struggle between the Roman and Carthaginian nations for supremacy. The betrayal of Dido, familiar from the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

and Juno's anger stir the goddess to prophesy the course of the war and choose Hannibal as her instrument of revenge. The childhood oath of Hannibal to his father Hamilcar
Hamilcar
Hamilcar was a common name in the Punic culture. There are several different transcriptions into Greek and Roman scripts. The ruling families of ancient Carthage often named their members with the traditional name Hamilcar...

 at the Dido temple in Carthage is narrated, and his character is described as vicious, cunning, and daring. The priestess of the temple prophesies the war. Hasdrubal
Hasdrubal
Hasdrubal was the name of several Carthaginian generals of the First and Second Punic Wars...

 is slaughtered by Spanish Gauls in revenge for his crucifixion of their king. Hannibal succeeds him by the army's acclaim and attacks Saguntum the situation and Rutulian/Zacynthian history of which are described. The siege begins and Hannibal fights a duel with the Saguntine champion Murrus, who is slain. The Saguntine senate meets and requests that Rome send envoys to stop the siege.

Book 2
In Book 2, Hannibal dismisses the Roman envoys from Saguntum and addresses his troops with a threat to Rome. The siege of the city continues and the warrior princess Asbyte is killed by Theron, who is killed by Hannibal and mutilated. At Carthage, Hanno gives a speech calling Hannibal insolent, while Gestar gives a response that suggests Hanno
Hanno
Hanno may refer to:* Hanno, Saitama, Honshū, Japan* Hanno , a lunar crater* Hanno , the pet white elephant of Pope Leo XPeople named Hanno:*Several ancient Carthaginians, including:...

 is a Roman sympathizer. While campaigning against Spanish tribes, Hannibal receives a shield as a gift from the Galicians that shows Carthaginian history up to the siege of Saguntum. The Saguntines begin to suffer, and a saddened Hercules sends Fides to strengthen and ennoble the Saguntines. Juno sends Tisiphone
Tisiphone
Tisiphone is the name of two figures in Greek mythology.-Erinyes:Tisiphone was one of the Erinyes or Furies, and sister of Alecto and Megaera. She was the one who punished crimes of murder: parricide, fratricide and homicide...

, who whips the people into a madness that causes them to burn themselves alive. The poet addresses the Saguntines and ensures their immortality.

Book 3
Bostar is sent to consult Jupiter Ammon
Ammon
Ammon , also referred to as the Ammonites and children of Ammon, was an ancient nation located east of the Jordan River, Gilead, and the Dead Sea, in present-day Jordan. The chief city of the country was Rabbah or Rabbath Ammon, site of the modern city of Amman, Jordan's capital...

 about the war. Hannibal visits the shrine of Hercules at Gades, where he admires the doors painted with the god's deeds and the unusual tides of the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. He tearfully sends his wife, the brave Imilce, back to Carthage, despite her wish to remain in the camp. Jupiter sends a dream to Hannibal in which he is led by Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...

 into Italy with a destructive snake which symbolizes Hannibal. The poet offers a catalogue of Carthaginian troops. As Hannibal crosses the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

, their Herculean aetiology is explained. Hannibal crosses the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 amid hardship while Venus asks Jupiter whether he plans on destroying Rome. Jupiter says his plan is to test Roman virtus and set the foundations of the Roman empire. He describes the future of Rome, which culminates in the reign of Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...

 and a praise of the emperor's poetry. The response from Jupiter Ammon promises glory to Carthage.

Book 4
Fama incites fear and preparation in the Romans who ready themselves for Hannibal and his vengeance-seeking Gallic troops. Scipio encourages his troops and leads them to the Ticinus river where a bird omen promises that the Carthaginians can rout the Romans for 8 years, but will be overcome eventually by Rome. The Gauls and their hero Crixus stand out in the battle of Ticinus. Jupiter calls Mars to help the young Scipio after his father is killed, and he withdraws the troops to the river Trebia
Trebbia
The Trebbia is a river predominantly of Liguria and Emilia Romagna in northern Italy. It is one of the four main right-bank tributaries of the river Po, the other three being the Tanaro, the Secchia and the Panaro...

, where there is a large battle in which the Carthaginians prevail and the river attacks Scipio until it is burned up by Vulcan
Vulcan (mythology)
Vulcan , aka Mulciber, is the god of beneficial and hindering fire, including the fire of volcanoes in ancient Roman religion and Roman Neopaganism. Vulcan is usually depicted with a thunderbolt. He is known as Sethlans in Etruscan mythology...

. Juno appears as the god of Lake Trasimene and tells Hannibal to march there. Hannibal refuses to allow his son to be sacrificed by lot to the gods and asks him ever to be an enemy of Rome.

Book 5
The history and mythical aetiology of Lake Trasimene is presented. Hannibal lays a trap for the Romans in a ravine while an enraged Flamininus goes on a rant against augury and refuses to heed the terrible sacrificial omens. The poet shudders to describe the battle from which the gods turn their faces away in obedience to fate except for a gleeful Juno. Bellona
Bellona (goddess)
Bellona was an Ancient Roman goddess of war, similar to the Ancient Greek Enyo. Bellona's attribute is a sword and she is depicted wearing a helmet and armed with a spear and a torch....

 stirs the Carthaginian lines, while Appius
Appius Claudius Pulcher (consul 212 BC)
Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman general of the 3rd century BC, active in the Second Punic War.-Life:...

 distinguishes himself before dying. Mago
Mago
Mago may refer to:* Mago , a genus of jumping spiders* Mago , or "Ma Gu" , the Xian or a goddess in East Asia* Mago , in Korean mythologyPlaces:* Mago Island, an island in Fiji...

 is wounded but healed by the snake charmer/physician Synhalus. The Carthaginian hero Sychaeus is slain. The Romans seek refuge in the trees where they are slaughtered and there is an earthquake. Ducarius slays Flamininus who is buried by a heap of Roman dead.

Book 6
The book opens with a description of Bruttius
Bruttius
The gens Bruttia was a Roman family during the late Republic and into imperial times. None of the gens obtained any important magistracies until the latter half of the 1st century AD, when Lucius Bruttius Maximus was proconsul in Cyprus....

' burial of the legionary eagle to save it from Hannibal. Serranus, a son of Marcus Atilius Regulus
Marcus Atilius Regulus
Marcus Atilius Regulus , a general and consul in the ninth year of the First Punic War...

, escapes the battle and comes to the humble house of Marus at Perusia
Perusia
The ancient Perusia, now Perugia, first appears in history as one of the 12 confederate cities of Etruria. It is first mentioned in the account of the war of 310 or 309 BC between the Etruscans and the Romans...

. There he is treated by Marus, who tells him the story of Regulus' battle with the Lybian snake at the river Bagradas (Medjerda) which leads the Naiads to demand suffering from Regulus in the future. Marus then tells Serranus about the Spartan Xanthippus
Xanthippus
Xanthippus was a Greek mercenary general hired by the Carthaginians to aid in their war against the Romans during the First Punic War...

 in the First Punic War
First Punic War
The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic. For 23 years, the two powers struggled for supremacy in the western Mediterranean Sea, primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters but also to a lesser extent in...

 and the use of Regulus as an envoy for Carthage. Marcia, Serranus' mother, asks Regulus not to return, but he, respecting his oath, leaves her and is tortured to death by the Carthaginians. A bloodied Fama reports the battle at Rome, after which Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator, whose family history is described, is elected consul. Hannibal sees at Liternum
Liternum
Liternum was an ancient town of Campania, Italy, on the low sandy coast between Cumae and the mouth of the Volturnus. It was probably once dependent on Cumae. In 194 BC it became a Roman colony....

 temple doors portraying scenes from the First Punic War; in a rage he orders the temple burnt.

Book 7
Book 7 opens with an exploration of Fabius' tactics of delay. Hannibal learns from a prisoner the family history of the Fabii and then attempts to incite Fabius to battle as he ravages Campania and the Falernian countryside. The poet, as he says, cannot resist telling the story of Falernus' theoxenia of Bacchus and the gods gift of wine. Hannibal, by sparing Fabius' lands tries to make the dictator suspect but becomes trapped in a defile. By setting a herd of cattle on fire, a diversion is created so the Carthaginians can escape. Fabius called to Rome hands over command to the magister equitum Marcus Minucius Rufus. The Carthaginians land at Cumae
Cumae
Cumae is an ancient Greek settlement lying to the northwest of Naples in the Italian region of Campania. Cumae was the first Greek colony on the mainland of Italy , and the seat of the Cumaean Sibyl...

, where they frighten the Nereids who go to Phorcys
Phorcys
In Greek mythology, Phorcys , a primordial sea god, generally cited as the son of Pontus and Gaia. According to the Orphic hymns, Phorcys, Cronus and Rhea were the eldest offspring of Oceanus and Tethys. Classical scholar Karl Kerenyi conflated Phorcys with the similar sea gods Nereus and Proteus...

 for prophecy. Phorkys tells the story of the Judgment of Paris and the reason for the war. Minucius, given equal powers with Fabius, attacks the Carthaginians and is barely saved by Fabius' force; the armies are reunited at the conclusion.

Book 8
Juno sends the spirit of Anna, the sister of Dido and now the nymph of the river Numicius, to Hannibal who is upset about his forced retreat. Anna tells Juno of Dido's suicide, her flight to Cyrene
Cyrene
Cyrene may refer to:* Cyrene , a Greek mythological figure* Cyrene, Libya, an ancient Greek colony in North Africa* USS Cyrene , a motor torpedo boat tender* 133 Cyrene, an asteroid...

 after Iarbas
Iarbas
In Roman mythology, Iarbas or Hiarbas was the son of Jupiter Hammon and a Garamantian nymph. He became the king of Gaetulia. According to Virgil's Aeneid, he fell in love with the Carthaginian queen Dido, who rejected his advances in favour of Aeneas...

' invasion, her escape to Italy and Aeneas from Pygmalion's fleet, and her transformation into a river from fear of Lavinia
Lavinia
In Roman mythology, Lavinia is the daughter of Latinus and Amata and the last wife of Aeneas.Lavinia, the only child of the king and "ripe for marriage", had been courted by many men in Ausonia who hoped to become the king of Latium. Turnus, ruler of the Rutuli, was the most likely of the suitors,...

, then hastens to Hannibal and encourages him by prophesying the Battle of Cannae
Cannae
Cannae is an ancient village of the Apulia region of south east Italy. It is a frazione of the comune of Barletta.-Geography:It is situated near the river Aufidus , on a hill on the right Cannae (mod. Canne della Battaglia) is an ancient village of the Apulia region of south east Italy. It is a...

. Varro
Varro
Varro was a Roman cognomen carried by:*Marcus Terentius Varro, sometimes known as Varro Reatinus, the scholar*Publius Terentius Varro or Varro Atacinus, the poet*Gaius Terentius Varro, the consul defeated at the battle of Cannae...

 is elected consul and gives a haughty speech criticizing Fabius, his colleague, Paulus, reluctantly decides to go to battle. There is a catalogue of Italian soldiers and allies. The book ends with an account of bad omens and an anonymous soldier's grim prophecy.

Critical responses to the Punica

In a well-known passage, Petronius
Petronius
Gaius Petronius Arbiter was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. He is generally believed to be the author of the Satyricon, a satirical novel believed to have been written during the Neronian age.-Life:...

 pointedly describes the difficulties of the historic theme. A poet, he said, who should take upon him the vast subject of the civil wars would break down beneath the burden unless he were full of learning, since he would have not merely to record facts, which the historians did much better, but must possess an unshackled genius, to which full course must be given. by the use of digressions, by bringing divine beings on to the stage, and by giving generally a mythologic tinge to the subject. The Latin laws of the historic epic were fixed by Ennius
Ennius
Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent...

, and were still binding when Claudian wrote. They were never seriously infringed, except by Lucan, who substituted for the dei ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...

of his predecessors the vast, dim and imposing Stoic
STOIC
STOIC was a variant of Forth.It started out at the MIT and Harvard Biomedical Engineering Centre in Boston, and was written in the mid 1970s by Jonathan Sachs...

 conception of destiny.

By protracted application, and being full of learning, Silius had acquired excellent recipes for every ingredient that went to the making of the conventional historic epic. Though he is not named by Quintilian
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...

, he is probably hinted at in the mention of a class of poets who, as the writer says, write to show their learning. To seize the moments in the history, however unimportant, which were capable of picturesque treatment; to pass over all events, however important, which could not readily be rendered into heroics; to stuff out the somewhat modern heroes to something like Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

ic proportions; to subject all their movements to the passions and caprices of the Olympians; to ransack the poetry of the past for incidents and similes on which a slightly new face might be put; to foist in by well-worn artifices episodes, however strange to the subject, taken from the mythologic or historic glories of Rome and Greece, all this Silius knew how to do. He did it all with the languid grace of the inveterate connoisseur, and with a simplicity foreign to his time, which sprang in part from cultivated taste and horror of the venturesome word, and in part from the subdued tone of a life which had come unscathed through the reigns of Caligula
Caligula
Caligula , also known as Gaius, was Roman Emperor from 37 AD to 41 AD. Caligula was a member of the house of rulers conventionally known as the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Caligula's father Germanicus, the nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius, was a very successful general and one of Rome's most...

, Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....

 and Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...

.

The more threadbare the theme, and the more worn the machinery, the greater the need of genius. Two of the most rigid requirements of the ancient epic were abundant similes and abundant single combats. But all the obvious resemblances between the actions of heroic man and external nature had long been worked out, while for the renovation of the single combat little could be done till the hero of the Homeric type was replaced by the medieval knight. Silius, however, had perfect poetic appreciation, with scarce a trace of poetic creativeness. No writer has ever been more correctly and more uniformly judged by contemporaries and by posterity alike. Only the shameless flatterer, Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...

, ventured to call his friend a poet as great as Virgil. But the younger Pliny gently says that he wrote poems with greater diligence than talent, and that, when, according to the fashion of the time, he recited them to his friends, he sometimes found out what men really thought of them. It is indeed strange that the poem lived on. Silius is never mentioned by ancient writers after Pliny except Sidonius
Sidonius Apollinaris
Gaius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius or Saint Sidonius Apollinaris was a poet, diplomat, and bishop. Sidonius is "the single most important surviving author from fifth-century Gaul" according to Eric Goldberg...

, who, under different conditions and at a much lower level, was such another as he.

Since the discovery of Silius by Poggio
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini
Poggio Bracciolini was an Italian scholar, writer and humanist. He recovered a great number of classical Latin texts, mostly lying forgotten in German and French monastic libraries, and disseminated manuscript copies among the educated world.- Biography :Poggio di Duccio was...

, no modern enthusiast has arisen to sing his praises. His poem has been rarely edited since the 18th century. Yet, by the purity of his taste and his Latin in an age when taste was fast becoming vicious and Latin corrupt, by his presentation to us of a type of a thousand vanished Latin epics, and by the historic aspects of his subject, Silius merits better treatment from scholars than he has received. The general reader he can hardly interest again. He is indeed of imitation all compact, and usually dilutes what he borrows; he may add a new beauty, but new strength he never gives. Hardly a dozen lines anywhere are without an echo of Virgil, and there are frequent admixtures of Lucretius
Lucretius
Titus Lucretius Carus was a Roman poet and philosopher. His only known work is an epic philosophical poem laying out the beliefs of Epicureanism, De rerum natura, translated into English as On the Nature of Things or "On the Nature of the Universe".Virtually no details have come down concerning...

, Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, Lucan
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...

, Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, Hesiod
Hesiod
Hesiod was a Greek oral poet generally thought by scholars to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. His is the first European poetry in which the poet regards himself as a topic, an individual with a distinctive role to play. Ancient authors credited him and...

 and many other poets still extant. If we could reconstitute the library of Silius we should probably find that scarcely an idea or a phrase in his entire work was wholly his own.

The raw material of the Punica was supplied in the main by the third decade of Livy, though Silius may have consulted other historians of the Hannibalic war. Such facts as are used are generally presented with their actual circumstances unchanged, and in their historic sequence. The spirit of the Punic times is but rarely misconceived—as when to secret voting is attributed the election of men like Gaius Flaminius
Gaius Flaminius
Gaius Flaminius Nepos was a politician and consul of the Roman Republic in the 3rd century BC. He was the greatest popular leader to challenge the authority of the Senate before the Gracchi a century later....

 and Gaius Terentius Varro
Gaius Terentius Varro
Gaius Terentius Varro was a Roman consul and commander. Along with his colleague, Lucius Aemilius Paullus, he commanded at the Battle of Cannae during the Second Punic War, in 216 BC, against the Carthaginian general Hannibal. The battle resulted in a decisive Roman defeat.Varro had been a praetor...

, and distinguished Romans are depicted as contending in a gladiatorial exhibition. Silius clearly intended the poem to consist of twenty-four books, like the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

and the Odyssey
Odyssey
The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

, but after the twelfth he hurries in visible weariness to the end, and concludes with seventeen.

The general plan of the epic follows that of the Iliad and the Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

. Its theme is conceived as a duel between two mighty nations, with parallel dissensions among the gods. Scipio Africanus
Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus , also known as Scipio Africanus and Scipio the Elder, was a general in the Second Punic War and statesman of the Roman Republic...

 and Hannibal are the two great heroes who take the place of Achilles and Hector
Hector
In Greek mythology, Hectōr , or Hektōr, is a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. As the first-born son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba, a descendant of Dardanus, who lived under Mount Ida, and of Tros, the founder of Troy, he was a prince of the royal house and the...

 on the one hand and of Aeneas
Aeneas
Aeneas , in Greco-Roman mythology, was a Trojan hero, the son of the prince Anchises and the goddess Aphrodite. His father was the second cousin of King Priam of Troy, making Aeneas Priam's second cousin, once removed. The journey of Aeneas from Troy , which led to the founding a hamlet south of...

 and Turnus
Turnus
In Virgil's Aeneid, Turnus was the King of the Rutuli, and the chief antagonist of the hero Aeneas.-Biography:Prior to Aeneas' arrival in Italy, Turnus was the primary potential suitor of Lavinia, daughter of Latinus, King of the Latin people. Upon Aeneas' arrival, however, Lavinia is promised to...

 on the other, while the minor figures are all painted with Virgilian or Homeric pigments. In the delineation. of character our poet is neither very powerful nor very consistent. His imagination was too weak to realize the actors with distinctness and individuality. His Hannibal is evidently at the outset meant for an incarnation of cruelty and treachery, the embodiment of all that the vulgar Roman attached to the name Punic. But in the course of the poem the greatness of Hannibal is borne in upon the poet, and his feeling of it betrays itself in many touches. Thus he names Scipio the great Hannibal of Ausonia
Ausonia
-Places:Argentina* Ausonia, Argentina, a community in General San Martín Department, CórdobaItaly* Ausonia, Lazio, a comune in the Province of Frosinone-Ships:* German aircraft carrier I , a German aircraft carrier...

; he makes Juno
Juno (mythology)
Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...

 assure the Carthaginian leader that if fortune had only permitted him to be born a Roman he would have been admitted to a place among the gods; and, when the ungenerous monster of the first book accords in the fifteenth a splendid burial to Marcellus, the poet cries, 'You would fancy it was a Sidonian chief who had fallen.' Silius deserves little pity for the failure of his attempt to make Scipio an equipoise to Hannibal and the counterpart in personal prowess and prestige of Achilles. He becomes in the process almost as mythical a figure as the medieval Alexander. The best drawn of the minor characters are Fabius Cunctator, an evident copy of Lucan's Cato
Cato
-Literature:*Distichs of Cato, or simply Cato, a Latin collection of proverbial wisdom and morality from the 3rd or 4th century AD author Dionysius Cato...

, and Paullus
Paullus
Paullus is a cognomen of ancient Rome, also appearing as an apparent praenomen of several Romans.* Marcus Aemilius L.f. Paullus, consul 302 BC* Marcus Aemilius M.f...

, the consul killed at Cannae
Cannae
Cannae is an ancient village of the Apulia region of south east Italy. It is a frazione of the comune of Barletta.-Geography:It is situated near the river Aufidus , on a hill on the right Cannae (mod. Canne della Battaglia) is an ancient village of the Apulia region of south east Italy. It is a...

, who fights, hates and dies like a genuine man.

Clearly it was a matter of religion with Silius to repeat and adapt all the striking episodes of Homer and Virgil. Hannibal must have a shield of marvellous workmanship like Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 and Aeneas; because Aeneas descended into Hades and had a vision of the future history of Rome, so must Scipio have his revelation from heaven; Trebia, choked with bodies, must rise in ire like Xanthus
Xanthus
Xanthus may refer to:In Greek mythology:*Divine**Xanthus, the gods' name for Scamander, the great river of Troy and its patron god**Xanthus, one of the twelve sons of Pan who were allied with Dionysus*Human...

, and be put to flight by Vulcan
Vulcan (mythology)
Vulcan , aka Mulciber, is the god of beneficial and hindering fire, including the fire of volcanoes in ancient Roman religion and Roman Neopaganism. Vulcan is usually depicted with a thunderbolt. He is known as Sethlans in Etruscan mythology...

; for Virgil's Camilla there must be an Asbyte, heroine of Saguntum; the beautiful speech of Euryalus
Euryalus
Euryalus refers to several different characters from Greek mythology and classical literature:#In the Aeneid by Virgil, Nisus and Euryalus are ideal friends and lovers, who died during a raid on the Rutulians.# Euryalus was the son of Mecisteus...

 when Nisus
Nisus
ni·susn. pl. nisusAn effort or endeavor to realize an aim.[Latin nisus, from past participle of niti, to strive.]In classical mythology, Nisus may refer to:...

 seeks to leave him is too good to be thrown away—furbished up a little, it will serve as a parting address from Imilce to her husband Hannibal. The descriptions of the numerous battles are made up in the main, according to epic rule, of single combats—wearisome sometimes in Homer, wearisome oftener in Virgil, painfully wearisome in Silius. The different component parts of the poem are on the whole fairly well knit together, and the transitions are not often needlessly abrupt; yet occasionally incidents and episodes are introduced with all the irrelevancy of the modern novel. The interposition of the gods is, however, usually managed with dignity and appropriateness.

As to diction and detail, we miss, in general, power rather than taste. The metre runs on with correct smooth monotony, with something always of the Virgilian sweetness, though attenuated, but nothing of the Virgilian variety and strength. The dead level of literary execution is seldom broken by a rise into the region of genuine pathos and beauty, or by a descent into the ludicrous or the repellent. There are few absurdities, but the restraining force is trained perception and not a native sense of humour, which, ever present in Homer, not entirely absent in Virgil, and sometimes finding grim expression in Lucan, fails Silius entirely. The address of Anna, Dido's sister, to Juno
Juno (mythology)
Juno is an ancient Roman goddess, the protector and special counselor of the state. She is a daughter of Saturn and sister of the chief god Jupiter and the mother of Mars and Vulcan. Juno also looked after the women of Rome. Her Greek equivalent is Hera...

 compels a smile. Though deified on her sister's death, and for a good many centuries already an inhabitant of heaven, Anna meets Juno for the first time on the outbreak of the Second Punic War, and deprecates the anger of the queen of heaven for having deserted the Carthaginians and attached herself to the Roman cause. Hannibal's parting address to his child is also comical: he recognizes in the heavy wailing of the year-old babe the seeds of rages like his own. But Silius might have been forgiven for a thousand more weaknesses than he has if in but a few things he had shown strength. The grandest scenes in the history before him fail to lift him up; his treatment, for example, of Hannibal's Alpine passage falls immensely below Lucan's vigorous delineation of Cato
Cato
-Literature:*Distichs of Cato, or simply Cato, a Latin collection of proverbial wisdom and morality from the 3rd or 4th century AD author Dionysius Cato...

's far less stirring march across the African deserts.

But in the very weaknesses of Silius we may discern merit. He at least does not try to conceal defects of substance by contorted rhetorical conceits and feebly forcible exaggerations. In his ideal of what Latin expression should be he comes near to his contemporary Quintilian
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus was a Roman rhetorician from Hispania, widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing...

, and resolutely holds aloof from the tenor of his age. Perhaps his want of success with the men of his time was not wholly due to his faults. His self-control rarely fails him; it stands the test of the horrors of war, and of Venus working her will on Hannibal at Capua
Capua
Capua is a city and comune in the province of Caserta, Campania, southern Italy, situated 25 km north of Naples, on the northeastern edge of the Campanian plain. Ancient Capua was situated where Santa Maria Capua Vetere is now...

. Only a few passages here and there betray the true silver Latin extravagance. In the avoidance of rhetorical artifice and epigrammatic antithesis Silius stands in marked contrast to Lucan, yet at times he can write with point. Regarded merely as a poet he may not deserve high praise; but, as he is a unique specimen and probably the best of a once numerous class, the preservation of his poem among the remains of Latin Literature is a fortunate accident.

The poem was discovered in a manuscript, possibly at Constance
Konstanz
Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...

, by Poggio, in 1416 or 1417; from this now lost manuscript all existing manuscripts, which belong entirely to the 15th century, are derived.

Editions

A valuable manuscript of the 8th or 9th century, found at Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 by L. Carrion in the latter part of the 16th century, disappeared soon after its discovery. Two editiones principes appeared at Rome in 1471; the principal editions since have been those of Heinsius
Nikolaes Heinsius
Nikolaes Heinsius may refer to:* Nikolaes Heinsius the Elder , scholar and poet* Nikolaes Heinsius the Younger , his son, novelist...

 (1600), Drakenborch
Arnold Drakenborch
Arnold Drakenborch was a Dutch classical scholar.-Biography:Drakenborch was born at Utrecht. Having studied philology under Graevius and Burmann the elder, and law under Cornelius Van Eck, in 1716 he succeeded Burmann in his professorship , which he continued to hold till his death...

 (1717), Ernesti
Johann Christian Gottlieb Ernesti
Johann Christian Gottlieb Ernesti , German classical scholar, was born at Arnstadt, Thuringia, and studied under his uncle, JA Ernesti, at the university of Leipzig....

 (Leipzig, 1791) and L. Bauer (1890). The Punica is included in the second edition of the Corpus poetarum Latinorum. A useful variorum
Variorum
A variorum is a work that collates all known variants of a text. It is a work of textual criticism, whereby all variations and emendations are set side by side so that a reader can track how textual decisions have been made in the preparation of a text for publication...

 edition is that of Lemaître
Jules Lemaître
François Élie Jules Lemaître , was a French critic and dramatist.He was born at Vennecy . He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but was already well known for his literary criticism, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote his time to literature...

 (Paris, 1823).

Recent writing on Silius is generally in the form of separate articles or small pamphlets; but see H. E. Butler, Post-Augustan Poetry (1909), chap. x.

In 1934 the Punica was edited, translated, and published in Loeb Classical Editions
Loeb Classical Library
The Loeb Classical Library is a series of books, today published by Harvard University Press, which presents important works of ancient Greek and Latin Literature in a way designed to make the text accessible to the broadest possible audience, by presenting the original Greek or Latin text on each...

.

Commentaries

Peter Marso (1442–1512) wrote a commentary on the Punica 6 May 1483. http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?intObjectID=5080892

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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