In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.2 (2003) 317-320 [Access article in PDF] Julia T. Dyson. King of the Wood: The Sacrificial Victor in Virgil's Aeneid. Oklahoma Series in Classical Culture 27. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. xii + 264 pp. Paper, $19.95. In this interesting study, Julia Dyson argues that the cult of Diana Nemorensis constitutes a crucial intertext for the interpretation of Aeneas' killing of Turnus at the (...) end of Virgil's Aeneidand the politico-religious order his action founds, namely, the Roman Empire. The project takes its bearings from the current renewal of scholarly interest in religion and sacrifice in Roman literature (e.g., Denis Feeney, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs [Cambridge, 1998] and Philip Hardie, The Epic Successors of Virgil[Cambridge, 1993]). In the first part of the book, "Sacrificial Victory," Dyson revisits the much-discussed scenes in which sacrifice, both literal (Laocoön's rites in Troy, Aeneas' in Thrace) and symbolic (the deaths of Laocoön, Palinurus, Misenus, etc.), are described. In the second part, "The Ghastly Priest," Dyson breaks new ground by focusing on specific details of the ritual in Diana's Arician grove and their evocation in the Aeneid, rather than appealing to an abstract concept of "sacrifice," to document a systematic pattern of allusion to the cult throughout the poem. The resulting work advances our understanding of Virgil's use of an important cult in Roman religion to give thematic coherence to his poem.Each part comprises six chapters. Part 1 examines the poem's various sacrifice-scenes, which have received considerable attention in the scholarly literature—e.g., C. Bandera, "Sacrificial Levels in Virgil's Aeneid" (Arethusa14, 1981, 217-39) and J. J. O'Hara, Death and the Optimistic Prophecy in Vergil's Aeneid(Princeton, 1990). Dyson is particularly concerned, however, to demonstrate that sacrifice fails consistently in the poem in order to develop the argument that Aeneas' death is demanded as the final sacrifice in the sequence. In her first chapter, "The Piaculaof Aeneas," she shows that Aeneas repeatedly fails to conduct sacrificial rites correctly, a failure that necessarily entails the gods' unceasing demand for further sacrifices. Chapter 2, "Tiber and Numicus," explores Virgil's allusions to the sacrificial fate of Aeneas—implied in the two divergent traditions of his end (either drowned or translated to heaven and deified while offering sacrifice on the banks of the river Numicus)—through the association, on the one hand, of Tiber with Numicus and, on the other, of Aeneas with Palinurus and other "sacrificial" victims.In chapter 3, "The Unburied Dead," Dyson develops her thesis further by demonstrating that such sacrificial deaths—often at sea and involving lack of burial—proliferate in the poem (Palinurus, Orontes, Leucaspis, Misenus, Caieta, Priam, Tarquitus) and thereby, she argues, prefigure the ultimate fate of Aeneas. Chapter 4, "Victor and Victim," examines instances of role-reversal in which sacrificer is transformed into sacrificial victim, not only in overtly religious contexts (as, e.g., Laocoön) but also, indeed primarily, on the battlefield in combat scenes which Virgil frequently invests with sacrificial detail. The diverse themes of rivers, sacrifice, and victory come together [End Page 317] in chapter 5, "Aeneas and Turnus," where Dyson analyses Aeneas' killing of Turnus (who is characterized, she argues, by association with the Tiber) in the final duel as a sacrifice that "both foreshadows and necessitates the sacrifice of Aeneas" (112). The last chapter in Part 1, "Juno's Honores," argues that Jupiter's promise to his consort that the Romans will outdo other nations in honoring her (Aen. 12.838-40) must be interpreted against Juno's demand for proper honors (i.e., sacrifices) at the poem's outset (1.46-49), a demand that can only be satisfied by further sacrifices—including that of Aeneas himself.Part 1 contains much interesting and innovative discussion of sacrifice along with some inevitable rehearsal of well-trodden ground, but it certainly establishes Dyson's thesis that Virgil alludes throughout the Aeneidto Aeneas' sacrificial... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:L’esthétique de StaceA. M. KeithAnne-Marie Taisne. L’esthétique de Stace. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994. 433 pp. Paper, 280 FF. (Collection d’Etudes Anciennes 122)Anne-Marie Taisne is the author of numerous articles concerning the literary history and artistic context that inform single poems in Statius’ Silvae and self-contained passages in his Thebaid and unfinished Achilleid, papers which lay the groundwork for her comprehensive new study of the literary aesthetic on (...) display in the extant poetic oeuvre of P. Papinius Statius. In this ambitious monograph, she undertakes to explore two facets of Statius’ technical artistry, his spatial and temporal imagery, within the theoretical framework provided by ancient literary criticism. She is particularly concerned to articulate the poet’s dynamic reuse of the weighty literary tradition to which he is heir, and accordingly proposes, in her introduction, to structure her discussion around such central ancient critical issues as imitatio (mimesis) along with its close relatives aemulatio and contaminatio, and doctrina with its associated critical vocabulary of ingenium, ratio, and ars (6–10). Throughout the volume, she explicates these techniques in detailed analysis of Statian imagines, which she defines generally in the sense of “imagery” following S. Viarre (“L’image et le symbole dans la poésie d’Ovide: Recherches sur l’imaginaire,” REL 62 [1974] 263–80), and particularly by reference to individual usages of the term as they are discussed in the article on imago in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (11).Part 1, “Correspondances dans l’espace,” examines the spatial imagery of Thebaid, Achilleid, and Silvae in three chapters which treat (1) echo and reflection (17–52), (2) metamorphosis, multiplication, and contagion (53–119), and (3) simile (120–76). Part 2, “Correspondances dans le temps,” investigates the poems’ use of time as a structural principle, again in three chapters which discuss (1) prophecies and portents (177–236), (2) digressive elements such as ecphrases and embedded narratives (237–303), and (3) leitmotifs, or repeated patterns of imagery, such as divine and human interventions and the role of nature in the poems. The material Taisne analyzes in part 1 coheres more convincingly with her overarching theme of spatial imagery than that which she discusses in part 2 under the rubric of temporal imagery. I did not understand, for example, why nature, well discussed in connection with Statius’ use of the simile in part 1 (137–62), reappears in part 2 (331–58) with no explanation of its relevance to temporal imagery.Taisne persuasively documents the wide range of literary models on which Statius draws in all his poetry, and shows that the Thebaid makes particular use of epic and tragic models (166–68, 170, 373–75), the Achilleid of tragic and lyric models (168–71, 374–78). Her discussion of the literary echoes and wider symbolic relevance of individual passages is often very interesting, and the sheer accumulation of literary parallels is extremely impressive. I was reminded of and newly alerted to significant literary resonances on almost every page, and noticed only one incomplete assemblage of literary parallels (in her discussion of Hylas [End Page 159] in Silvae 1.2.199 [27–28], there is no mention of Theocr. Id. 13, Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.1207–72, or Nicander apud Ant. Lib. Met. 26). The service to which this material is put, however, is not as exciting as the length of the study might lead one to hope. Throughout, Taisne argues that Statius’ deployment of imagery is consistent with the overarching thematic framework of each poem, defined as furor and horror in the Thebaid (23 and passim), an ambiguous and deceptive calm in the Achilleid (353–54 and passim), and serenity and harmony in the Silvae (28 and passim), but she does not press her analysis beyond the accumulation of imagery in the service of these themes as evidence of Statian amplificatio. This is particularly disappointing in an author so well placed to discuss the material culture of the Flavian epoch and the interrelations between Statius’ poetry (especially the Silvae) and the culture of display in Domitian’s Rome. Nevertheless, scholars will be grateful to Taisne for the material she has collected... (shrink)