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Epic characters often reflect attributes of the gods, and in Statius' Achilleid, Achilles is no different. At various moments in the poem, he is similar to Jupiter, Apollo and Bacchus. This paper develops the connections between Achilles and Bacchus by arguing for the importance of the dramatic representation of Bacchus--and that of his brother Hercules--to understanding the larger plot of Statius' poem. Achilles' behavior recalls in particular the comic presentations of Bacchus and Hercules as figures who can transgress normal bounds without compromising their elevated status. Moreover, the comic Bacchus and Hercules afford models for the coexistence of seemingly paradoxical or even contradictory attributes within a character. While Achilles' literary heritage is undoubtedly part of the Homeric tradition, Statius also draws upon other genres and artistic strategies for his treatment of the hero. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper I am discussing some passages in Statius' Achilleid, including the opening words of the poem, where some elisions seem to effectively suggest how gender and identity of Achilles become destabilized during his stay on Scyros in women's clothes. The elisions to be discussed affect word endings indicative of the masculine grammatical gender; in some cases, moreover, these endings are not just muted but also replaced, as it were, by their feminine equivalents. I also examine one passage where the masculine endings are emphatically not silenced despite elision; and a pair of passages where tension between the masculine and the feminine is introduced into the text by conjecture rather than by elision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to study the primal relationship between music and epic poetry, whose traces are found in Homer. On one hand, such undertaking will be done under the light of ancient doctrines about musical teaching and its ethical effects. On the other, the study will also consider the way in wich moral readings of this kind, based on the Achilles at the lyre passage from the Iliad, IX, 186-189, were exploited by Statius in his Achilleid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Statius' representation of Thetis in the Achilleid in comparison with her representation in the Iliad. Statius, it is argued, goes against the Homeric tradition, depicting the goddess with features opposite from those she possesses in Homer. Thetis, generally perceived as a modest and ladylike speaker in the Iliad , employs masculine-gendered rhetoric and becomes offensive in the Achilleid ; paternal acts linked to Peleus in the Homeric tradition are in Statius' poem undertaken by Thetis; Homer's omniscient and powerful goddess is almost ridiculed in Statius: being obsessed with the impossible, i.e. Achilles' salvation, she repeatedly fails to achieve a possible delay of his doom. Through this technique, Statius inverts Thetis' traditional character, creating a heroine that fits perfectly in his unconventional epic of cross-dressing and role-play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]