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Presently the wondrous treasure became the property of the
Nasamonian king. Hannibal, ever savage of hand and proud in
treacherous sword, gave libation to the valiant god, who hated him,
steeped as he was in the blood of the Italian race, carrying dire
conflagration to Romulean dwellings, even as he offered him viands
and Lenaean bounty, grieving he accompanied that wicked army,
above all when Hannibal with sacrilegious torch mangled the god‟s
own towers, defiling the houses and temples of innocent Saguntum
and filling her people with a noble frenzy.
Shackleton Bailey, 2003, 287.
Like Martial, Statius recounts a list of prestigious previous owners for the statuette. The
list not only includes Alexander and Hannibal but also Sulla which makes the Silvae one
of the few texts to connect Hannibal and Sulla (Statius, Silv. 4.6.85-6; Martial, Ep.
9.43.9). 159
McNelis 160 argues that the current owner, Vindex, must be a personage of authority
given this poetic alignment with Alexander, Hannibal and Sulla through ownership of a
statue, yet Statius is explicit about the contrast between the statue‟s previous owners and
the present one, Vindex. The statue no longer lives in a world of royal pomp, ceremony
or warfare but resides instead with an owner who believes in old-fashioned values of
fides and prefers singing to warfare (Silv. 4.6.92-109). Statius believes that Lysippus
would approve of Vindex as the owner of his artwork (Silv. 4.6.108-9) and expresses
admiration for Vindex‟s skill as a connoisseur of fine art and identifying the uninscribed
bronze as the work of Lysippus:
quis namque oculis certaverit usquam
Vindicis artificum veteres agnoscere ductus
et non inscriptis auctorem reddere signis?
54
Statius, Silv. 4.6.23-4
For who would ever rival Vindex‟ eyes in recognising the hands of old
masters and restoring its maker to an untitled statue?
Shackleton Bailey, 2003, 283.
158 Newlands, 2002, 73 reads Statius, Silv. 4.6 on the statuette as complementing Silv. 1.1 on the
equestrian statue of Domitian in the forum; she notes that Silv. 4.6 is the longest poem in Silv. 4 as Statius
cultivates the paradox of the length of poem against the diminutive size of the statuette and Hercules‟
reputation for super-human size and strength. Bassett, 1966, 268 compares the poetic treatments of the
statue between Martial and Statius.
159 Spencer, 2002, 242, n.9 argues that Sulla is an appropriate addition because Alexander was a model for
Roman generals who absorbed too much power for themselves. McNelis, 2008, 258 notes that the rhetoric
is more important than the „truth,‟ arguing that the transmission of the statuette from Alexander to
Hannibal to Sulla mirrors Roman cultural absorption of Greek art by conquest (the conquests of Syracuse
and Tarentum in the Second Punic War brought the first inheritances of Greek Art to Rome).
160 McNelis, 2008, 255. Cf. Rawlings, 2005, 155 notes that these „Domitianic poets evidently enjoyed
exploring the interplay between Hannibal‟s aspirations and Hercules‟ supposed contempt for them.‟