Open AccessIranian Themes in the Poetry of Statius
Author(s) -
Tomasz Babnis
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
classica cracoviensia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2391-6753
pISSN - 1505-8913
DOI - 10.12797/cc.21.2018.21.01
Subject(s) - armenian , politics , object (grammar) , poetry , empire , literature , ethnography , history , art , ancient history , classics , law , philosophy , political science , linguistics , archaeology
Publius Papinius Statius was one of the most important poets of the Flavian Age. His works (Thebais, Silvae and unfinished Achilleis) became the object of great interest of scholars. One of the issues of Statian poetry that was so far ignored by scholars was its image of the East and Easterners. Among them the Iranian world (first of all Parthian empire) is the one that deserves special interest because of the importance of relations between Rome and Parthia as well as the old literary tradition concerning Persia, Parthia etc. Although this matter is of marginal importance in Statius, there are a lot of references to Iranian themes in Thebais and Silvae. Some of them are connected with military and political relations with Rome (esp. the Armenian War in the times of Nero), while some refer to ethnographic tradition and traditional image of Achaemenid Persia. In these passages we can find great influence of Augustan poets, Horace in particular.