As I am asking everyone to keep some notes, observations or reflections as they read their classical work, I will do the same. These notes reflect only my ideas and interests, and my final report on this work will cover at most only a few of these reflections. I will record each reading and update this display each time I read some more.

10 August 2001: Thebaid I, ll. 1-250.
Like much of Silver Latin writing (late 1st c. CE), Statius' writing shows that he has studied his material long and hard; there are lots of literary allusions and references, many of which Statius doesn't bother to explain -- after all, his audience is learned and should be able to figure it out.

Why, though, did Statius pick this story? His contemporary Valerius Flaccus chose to do a Latin version of the Argonautica. He himself later began an Achilleid (about the chief Greek hero of the Trojan war). Both of these seem much more appropriate material for an epic poem. Did this appeal to him because it had not been done in an epic before? (I'm not sure of that, but I don't know of another author's attempt.) Parts of the story were done in drama and by other authors, but no full fledged epic. Did its having two brothers who engage in internecine war with each other appeal to Statius? After all, Rome was founded, according to legend, by Romulus and Remus and Romulus ended up killing his brother, Remus. Other Latin authors have pointed to that act as something almost like an "original sin" in Roman lore -- after all, in Roman history, there were lots of civil wars, where Roman fought and killed Roman.

There is a rather elaborate and fawning recusatio (