Achilleid
Encyclopedia
The Achilleid is an unfinished
Unfinished work
An unfinished work is creative work that has not been finished. Its creator may have chosen never to finish it or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances outside of their control such as death. Such pieces are often the subject of speculation as to what the finished piece would have...

 epic poem
Epic poetry
An epic is a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation. Oral poetry may qualify as an epic, and Albert Lord and Milman Parry have argued that classical epics were fundamentally an oral poetic form...

 by Publius Papinius Statius that was intended to present the life of Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....

 from his youth through his death at Troy
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

. Only about one and a half books (1,127 dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter
Dactylic hexameter is a form of meter in poetry or a rhythmic scheme. It is traditionally associated with the quantitative meter of classical epic poetry in both Greek and Latin, and was consequently considered to be the Grand Style of classical poetry...

s) were completed before the poet's death. What remains is an account of the hero's early life with Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

 the centaur
Centaur
In Greek mythology, a centaur or hippocentaur is a member of a composite race of creatures, part human and part horse...

, and an episode in which his mother Thetis
Thetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...

 disguised him as a girl on the island of Scyros before he joined the Greek expedition against Troy.

Composition

Based upon three references to the poem in the Silvae
Silvae
The Silvae is a collection of Latin occasional poetry in hexameters, hendecasyllables, and lyric meters by Publius Papinius Statius . There are 32 poems in the collection, divided into five books. Each book contains a prose preface which introduces and dedicates the book...

, the Achilleid seems to have been composed between 94 and 96 CE. At Silvae 4.7.21–24, Statius complains that he lacks the motivation to make progress upon his "Achilles" without the company of his friend C. Vibius Maximus who was travelling in Dalmatia
Dalmatia
Dalmatia is a historical region on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. It stretches from the island of Rab in the northwest to the Bay of Kotor in the southeast. The hinterland, the Dalmatian Zagora, ranges from fifty kilometers in width in the north to just a few kilometers in the south....

 (and to whom poem is addressed).
Statius apparently overcame this self-described writer's block, for in a poem from the posthumously published fifth book of the Silvae he refers to an upcoming recitation of a section from the Achilleid. This reference is believed to date from the summer of 95, and Statius presumably died later that year or early in the next, leaving the Achilleid unfinished.

Poetic models

Statius' primary models are Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

 and the poems of the epic cycle which touch on the life of Achilles. In the opening of the Achilleid, Statius asks that his poem not stop with the death of Hector (nec in Hectore tracto sistere 1.6) as the Iliad
Iliad
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles...

does but that it continue through the whole Trojan cycle, invoking these two important models. His style in the Achilleid has been seen as far more reminiscent of Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

 than Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

, his major influence in the composition of the Thebaid.

Book 1

The Achilleid opens with a traditional epic invocation
Invocation
An invocation may take the form of:*Supplication or prayer.*A form of possession.*Command or conjuration.*Self-identification with certain spirits....

 of the Muses and Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...

, requesting inspiration for the poet's work and outlining the content of the poem to follow. The Muses are the first to be addressed (Ach. 1.1–7):

Magnanimum Aeaciden formidatamque Tonanti
progeniem et patrio vetitam succedere caelo,
diva, refer. quamquam acta viri multum inclita cantu
Maeonio (sed plura vacant), nos ire per omnem—
sic amor est—heroa velis Scyroque latentem
Dulichia proferre tuba nec in Hectore tracto
sistere, sed tota iuvenem deducere Troia.

Of great-hearted Aeacides, the Thunderer's offspring
fearsome and forbidden to succeed to his father's heaven,
do sing, goddess. Although the man's deeds are much famed
in Maeonian song (but more remain), that we traverse the whole—
so I crave—hero may you wish, and that hidden in Scyrus
we lead him forth with Dulichian trump and do not with Hector's drag
cease, but lead the warrior down through Troy's whole story.


As in Vergil's Aeneid
Aeneid
The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It is composed of roughly 10,000 lines in dactylic hexameter...

 and Statius' own Thebaid, the very first words present the poem's primary topic, expanded with a clause joined by the Latin enclitic conjunction -que. While the structure of the first line puts the Achilleid within the Vergilian tradition of martial epic, Philip Hardie sees the last line quoted above as an indication of Statius' debt to Ovid. Specifically, the choice of the verb deducere, "to lead down", evokes the invocation in the Metamorphoses in which Ovid asks the gods to lead down (deducite) to his own time a "perpetual song" (perpetuum carmen), with which Hardie also compares Statius' "Troy's whole story" (tota Troia, literally: "all of Troy").

The poem continues by praising Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...

. Thetis
Thetis
Silver-footed Thetis , disposer or "placer" , is encountered in Greek mythology mostly as a sea nymph or known as the goddess of water, one of the fifty Nereids, daughters of the ancient one of the seas with shape-shifting abilities who survives in the historical vestiges of most later Greek myths...

 knowing that her son will die asks Neptune
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...

 if he will sink the Trojan fleet which carries Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and Helen, but Neptune tells her that the war is fated, so she goes to Chiron
Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron was held to be the superlative centaur among his brethren.-History:Like the satyrs, centaurs were notorious for being wild and lusty, overly indulgent drinkers and carousers, given to violence when intoxicated, and generally uncultured delinquents...

, eats in his cave, and takes Achilles with her to hide him. Thetis hides Achilles on Scyros and dresses him as a girl; Achilles is presented to king Lycomedes
Lycomedes
Lycomedes , in Greek mythology, was the King of Scyros during the Trojan War.-Lycomedes and Achilles:Before the war, Thetis sent her son Achilles, disguised as a girl, to Lycomedes's court, as a prophecy had decreed that he would die at Troy. It was there that Achilles married Lycomedes' daughter...

, joins in the dances at the festival of Minerva, and falls in love with Deidamia
Deidamia
Deidamia may refer to:* Deidamia , from Greek mythology.* from Greek mythology, another name for Hippodamia, wife of Pirithous.* Deidamia I of Epirus, wife of Demetrius Poliorcetes* Deidamia II of Epirus, last ruler of the Aeacid dynasty....

. The Argives, meanwhile, muster their forces but notice that Achilles is missing. The prophet, Thestor
Thestor
Thestor is a genus of butterfly in the Lycaenidae family.-Species:*Thestor barbatus Henning & Henning, 1997*Thestor basutus *Thestor brachycerus *Thestor braunsi van Son, 1941...

, in a trance sees that Achilles is on Scyros, and Ulysses
Odysseus
Odysseus or Ulysses was a legendary Greek king of Ithaca and the hero of Homer's epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer's Iliad and other works in the Epic Cycle....

departs to fetch him. Achilles forces Deidamia to have sex with him in a sacred grove. Ulysses arrives at Scyros, is entertained by Lycomedes, and sets out cosmetics and weapons as gifts. When Achilles is attracted by the weapons and not the cosmetics, his identity is revealed; Deidamia sees the future and recites a speech of despair.

Book 2

Achilles embarks with Ulysses, praying to Thetis. Ulysses tells him the story of Paris' abduction of Helen, and then Achilles tells him of his youth, his hunting exploits, and the teachings of Chiron. The poem ends with the closure of Achilles' narrative.

Influence and Critical Responses to the Achilleid

The Achilleid has generally received far more positive criticism than the Thebaid. One branch of this focuses on comparisons between the two poems; many scholars see a drastic difference between the "serious" and "Iliadic" Thebaid and the playful "Ovidian" Achilleid. Some have seen the Achilleid as Statius' attempt to write an entirely new mult-generic type of epic as a challenge to the Virgilian model. Others have noted the importance of female emotions and feminine characteristics in the poem. Finally, some have interpreted the character of Achilles as a subversive foil for Domitian.
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