Achilles at Rome : studies in the Achilleid of Statius

Abstract

This thesis is a literary study of the Achilleid of P. Papinius Statius, an unfinished hexameter epic on the life of Achilles. It is, so far as I know, the first full-length monograph on the poem in any language. For the sake of keeping the amount of text manageable, and in order to maintain a focus on the mythical biography of Achilles, I have excluded from detailed discussion the section of the poem that describes the Greek fleet mustering against Troy at Aulis (1.397- 559). The first chapter of this thesis serves as an introduction ; I describe the shape of the poem and what we know of the circumstances of its composition. My argument is that the portion of the epic that we have should not be considered as a 'fragment', but as a coherent and carefully designed sample of work that was intended to demonstrate the nature of the poet's work-in-progress. On this basis the formal unity of the work may be appreciated.