Scholarship on Statius has contributed valuable studies on the relationship between the Thebaid and the Silvae,Footnote ¹ whose first book appeared only one year after the publication of the Theban epic. Arguing against Cancik's formalist analysis, which highlighted the continuity between these two works,Footnote ² Vessey suggested that Statius was eager to differentiate between the Thebaid and the Silvae in order to comply with the principles of the classical theory of genres.Footnote ³ Shifting the focus from the style to the tone of the two works, Newlands has persuasively theorized that in the Silvae, a collection of ‘safe and joyful poetry’, Statius often reverses themes and images used in the Thebaid, ‘a poem of pain and suffering’.Footnote ⁴ More specifically, she shows that in Silvae 1.5, addressed to Claudius Etruscus, Statius alludes to his epos to contrast the everlasting friendship between himself and his patron with the undying enmity between Eteocles and Polynices.Footnote ⁵ In this paper I argue that Statius uses the same technique in Silvae 3.3, also addressed to Claudius Etruscus. There he reverses his own description of the contentious relationship between Tisiphone and Pietas in Thebaid Books 1 and 11 to present his patron's affectionate bond with his father as antithetical to Oedipus’ resentful relationship with his children.Footnote ⁶

Silvae 3.3 is a consolation for Claudius Etruscus on the death of his beloved father. The poem meets generic expectations by focussing on the deceased, who had an exceptionally long and distinguished career, culminating in his appointment as secretary a rationibus. He held this position for a few years, until he was banished by Domitian for some not well-defined reason. Only the intercession of his son with the emperor, Statius emphasizes, allowed him to return from exile not long before his death.Footnote ⁷ The poem features the conventional structure of Statius’ consolationes, typically divided into exordium, laudatio, lamentatio and solacia.Footnote ⁸ In the exordium, the section where the poet can more easily break away from the constraints of the genre and explore different avenues,Footnote ⁹ Statius addresses Pietas and begs her to console Etruscus (3.3.1–7):

The prominent role played by pietas here, anticipated and underlined by its mention in the praefatio to Book 3 as the main theme of the poem (merebatur et Claudi Etrusci mei pietas aliquod ex studiis nostris solacium, 14–15), is discussed by White, who points out that, although the occasion calls for a reference to pietas, ‘the care which Statius has taken to ornament and enlarge it reveals a more than perfunctory interest’.Footnote ¹¹ This focus on Etruscus’ filial devotion was probably due to his lack of remarkable public distinctions: persuading Domitian to reinstate his father after the banishment was his most outstanding achievement.Footnote ¹² I suggest that Statius makes this emphasis on pietas even more prominent by alluding to the Thebaid and, more specifically, by reversing both Oedipus’ invocation to Tisiphone in Book 1Footnote ¹³ and the subsequent clash between the Fury and Pietas in Book 11.Footnote ¹⁴

At the beginning of Thebaid Book 1, Oedipus curses his sons for having mistreated him, and summons Tisiphone from the Underworld so that she may punish them by instigating a fratricidal war. The Fury promptly carries out the order. Although in distress on account of the fraternal strife and quite hopeless about the future, at 11.457–96 Pietas makes one last attempt to delay the conflict: she comes down from the heavens to instil a sudden sense of peace into the soldiers’ hearts. Tisiphone, however, immediately intervenes to drive her away by threatening her with snakes and torches. Terrified by her rival, Pietas flees, returning to her celestial abode.Footnote ¹⁵ Silvae 3.3 overturns this narrative pattern: having left the earth at the end of the Thebaid, Pietas is now called back by Statius, whereas the Furies are exhorted to stay away.

In the first line of Silvae 3.3 Pietas is called summa deum, and her divinity is defined as gratissima caelo. This description reverses the portrait that opens the scene at Theb. 11.457–60, where Pietas withdraws from the gods and sits in a remote region of the heavens:Footnote ¹⁶

The connection between these two texts is strengthened by the clarification at 3.3.2 that Pietas rarely regards the world: she did so in the narrative universe of the Thebaid, and she is doing it again now. The lands looked upon by Pietas are significantly defined as profanatas (2) so as to evoke the opening lines of the Thebaid, where Statius reveals that the objects of his song are ‘alternate reigns fought for an unnatural hate’ (alternaque regna profanis | decertata odiis).

Statius’ reworking of his own portrait of Pietas also concerns her outfit. At 3.3.3 the deity is depicted as a priestess, as befits her role as the ideal officiant of Etruscus’ father's funeral rites.Footnote ¹⁷ While at Theb. 11.460 she took off her headbands as a display of grief, she is now vittata comam. Furthermore, at Theb. 11.459 she was not wearing her usual dress, whereas she now appears wrapped in a white cloak (niveoque insignis amictu), which echoes the ‘snow-white trail’ that she left behind when she crossed the sky at Theb. 11.472–3 (niveus sub nubibus atris | quamquam maesta deae sequitur vestigia limes, ‘beneath the dark clouds a snow-white trail follows the goddess's footsteps, sad though they were’).Footnote ¹⁸

Most importantly, Pietas is invited to be praesens (4), just as she was before she was driven off by the depravity of wicked men. The phrase nocentum fraude (4–5) reverses another passage of Thebaid Book 11, where the goddess is accused of treachery by Tisiphone for trying to protect guilty Thebes (11.482–7):Footnote ¹⁹

In Silvae 3.3 Statius rewrites his own epic to restore the natural order of the world: while in the narrative universe of the Thebaid, dominated by chaos and characterized by a complete upheaval of all values, Pietas’ attempted intervention to stop civil war was regarded as a trick, in the Silvae, where traditional morals are revived, fraus defines the banishment of Pietas instead.

At Silv. 3.3.6 Statius addresses Pietas with the typical invocation of kletic hymns,Footnote ²⁰ ades, also used by Oedipus to summon Tisiphone at Theb. 1.81 (huc ades; note huc in the same line-position at Silv. 3.3.3).Footnote ²¹ The hellish world described in the Thebaid provides the perfect setting for Fury's ascent to earth,Footnote ²² which relegates Pietas to a marginal role; in the Silvae, on the other hand, Pietas is finally recalled, and the Furies are urged to stay away (3.3.26–8):

The wish that the Furies leave the deceased alone is a topos of Statius’ consolations.Footnote ²³ However, only in Silvae 3.3 does Statius address the Furies directly, reversing Oedipus’ summoning of Tisiphone in Thebaid Book 1. In addition, the language used by Statius here is reminiscent of that employed at Theb. 11.492–5 by Tisiphone to drive Pietas away:

The same adverb longe occurs in the two texts with reference to the banishment of two different characters: Pietas in Thebaid Book 11 and the Furies in Silvae 3.3 (where the adverb occurs twice, once in the same line-position as Theb. 11.493). Furthermore, in Thebaid Book 11 Tisiphone sends Pietas away by means of her ‘hissing snakes’, whereas in Silvae 3.3 Statius wishes that the ‘hissing of the Furies’ may not disturb Etruscus’ father.Footnote ²⁴

An analogous reworking of the epic contrast between Pietas and Tisiphone is found in the Laudes Crispini of Silvae 5.2,Footnote ²⁵ which features the only other reference to Pietas’ visit to earth in the collection. The return to earth of personifications of virtues is a recurring motif in panegyrics, and the Silvae are no exception: at 1.4.2 earth is visited by Astrea, whereas at 5.3.89–90 by Pietas and Iustitia together. Commenting on these figures, Gibson argues that ‘Statius is quite inconsistent in the names he employs’.Footnote ²⁶ Rather, I suggest that by mentioning Pietas alone in 3.3 and 5.2 Statius deliberately differentiates the only two scenes that directly allude to Thebaid Book 11.

Among the several qualities of Crispinus, Statius cites his forgiveness, which enabled him to pardon his stepmother after she attempted to poison him. At lines 91–6 the addressee himself comments on this episode by pointing out that Domitian's reign has finally allowed Pietas to come back:

Bernstein has persuasively argued that the return of Pietas at line 92 reverses her banishment in Thebaid Book 11. By means of this allusion Statius praises Crispinus and Domitian, implying that they are able to contain the violence of the Thebaid.Footnote ²⁷ In addition, in these lines, as also in Silvae 3.3, the return of Pietas is followed and complemented by a reference to the Furies, whom Crispinus wishes to keep away from his stepmother's shade. The link between these two passages appears even stronger if one considers that the three characters mentioned at 5.2.95–6—namely, the Furies, Cerberus and the manes—are cited in the same order at 3.3.26–8.Footnote ²⁸

In conclusion, I suggest that in Silvae 3.3 Statius reverses the narrative pattern of Thebaid Books 1 and 11. In the Thebaid Oedipus summons Tisiphone to punish his own children by stirring up civil war, and the Fury promptly obeys, banishing Pietas from earth to prevent her from stopping the conflict. On the other hand, in Silvae 3.3, which celebrates Claudius Etruscus’ loving relationship with his now departed father, the order is re-established, as Pietas returns, and the Furies are urged to stay away from the deceased. While in the Thebaid all fundamental values, including filial devotion, are turned upside down, in the Silvae Statius describes a more conventional and reassuring world, in which a son obtains distinction by helping his father be reinstated by the emperor, whose fair reign is further contrasted—although one might question how genuinely—in Silvae 5.2 with the horrifying narrative universe of the Thebaid, founded on vengeance.