Kenney_and_Clausen B.M.W.(eds.) - Get a Free Blog

SILIUS
miniature. Silius' cura has for once produced a bounty, but to find such
'occasional gems, one must endure the dross'. 1
One merit of Silius, even in his less inspired episodes, is linguistic perspicuity
— a facet of his work that separates him from the tortuous complexities of
Statius as well as from the sterile insipidity that afflicted parts of Valerius'
Argonautica. This clarity of diction sprang, no doubt, both from Silius' reverence
for Virgil and from his adoption of the annalistic tradition in epic. But
even this merit has its limitations: it induces torpor. One spark of ardent
animation — a quality that Lucan and Statius perhaps possessed in excess —
would often have saved Silius from the chilling decorum, the fibreless and
numbing dullness that pervades the Punica. In Pliny's terms, there was an
absence of sustained ingenium.
It has sometimes been remarked that the Punica is an epic without a hero.
It is in fact Hannibal, the consummate exemplum of Carthaginian perfidy, that
dominates and controls the narrative. He is, like Turnus in the Aeneid (6.89),
a rebirth of Achilles, the archetypal enemy of Troy—Rome; but he is also a
Punic Aeneas, leading an invading force from North Africa to Italy in fulfilment
of Dido's prophecy, but, because Punic, an impious Aeneas, foredoomed to
defeat. In Book 2, the people of Spain present Hannibal "with an engraved
shield (395— 496). 2 It is a heroic attribute, bringing him into relation with both
Achilles and Aeneas. Hannibal's heroism is, however, superficial, for he lacks
those virtues which enabled the progeny of Aeneas ultimately to overcome
Carthage. Hannibal is a hero defeated by Fate, by the fact of his Punic origin
as much as by his own innate depravity. It may not have been Silius' intention,
but his portrait of Hannibal has a tragic nobility; the general with an inordinate
lust for blood (cf. 1.40, 59—60, etc.) can nonetheless utter an exalted tribute to
Aemilius Paullus when he comes upon his corpse after Cannae (10.572—8).
The younger Scipio in the Punica is elevated to a semi-divine status, as we have
seen. Yet, like Fabius Maximus Cunctator, Paullus and even Regulus, whose
sufferings are described in retrospect in Book 6 (