This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary collection explores different ways of visualising Greek and Roman epic from Homer to Statius, in both ancient and modern culture. The book presents new perspectives on Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, Valerius Flaccus and Statius, and covers the re-working of epic matter in tragedy, opera, film, late antique speeches of praise, story-boarding, sculpture and wall-painting.
Epic games are more than just an interlude; they reflect the realities of epic: heroism, power and war. This first major study of the athletic games in Statius' Thebaid Book 6 uses them to produce a new reading of the poem as a whole. It explores each event in Statius' games, discussing intertextual manoeuvres, historical context and poetic positioning, developing a theme from each: audience power, cosmic disruption, national identity, masculinity and the body, games and war, kingship and narrative control. This book uses a close reading of one part of one text to range over ancient literature.