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The Better Sex: Redefining Women in Statius Thebaid

Men are heroic, full of virtus, and better than women: so Latin epic has been

interpreted. Women are used solely to define what is good, right, or virtuous by negative

example. Looking at theAeneid, for example, scholars point to Dido or Amata as typical

weak women wreaking havoc on the people and power structures around them. Work on

Statius Thebaidis no different, even though the women there are portrayed so positively

that it is more accurate to say that the role of womanhood is being constructed by the

negative example of the male.

One of the most striking examples of women taking up the role of men is founded

in a phrase, placed twice in the text, regarding the gender divide. In the beginning of the

epic, Statius uses the words melior sexusto describe men, but later on, after the descent

into warfare and madness, he uses those same words, with the addition of iam, to describe

women. Statius uses the women, now the better sex, to show that everything of man has

gone wrong, and only the women are left to provide sanity and stability.

Death and burial are important, both in terms of Roman life and in the life of the

Greeks in the Thebaid. Without proper ritual, people cannot recover from the grief of

death and destruction. Statius uses the power that women have through public grieving

to affect major plot points, such as Argias and Antigones public defiance of a powerful

male ruler.

If all women did in this epic were to mourn and to be virtuous, it would have been

enough. But Statius gives books worth of dialogue to women, and much of the major

action that is not fighting. Hypsipyle alone comprises nearly 450 lines in the center of the

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poem. This stands out dramatically when held against, for instance, theAeneid, in which

the direct speech of all the women combined totals a mere 380 lines.

Statius defines women here as the embodiment of sanity when men have lost

theirs, the keepers of the way of death and renewal after death, and the stars, in their own

way, of the show that Statius has put on. As main characters, the women of the Thebaid

hold key moments and major plot points, acting upon them rather than being acted upon.

As the caretakers of death and ritual cleansing, they pave the way for life after the

tragedy of war is over. As compared to Statius men, they are restraint, sanity, reason.

They are the voice of criticism where criticism is due, the conscience in mens heads, and

the ones who look to alternate solutions to dire problems. Statius has defined, and

redefined, womanhood in its own right.

Bibliography

Dietrich, Jessica Shaw. Thebaid's feminine ending.Ramus 1999 28 (1): 40-53.

Hershkowitz, Debra. Patterns of Madness in Statius Thebaid. JRS 85 1995 52-64.

Holland J. E. - Studies on the heroic tradition in the Thebaid of Statius. Univ. of MissouriColumbia, 1976. 255 p.

Lesueur, Roger. "Les Femmes dans la Thbaide de Stace," 229-242 in: M. Woronoff (ed.)L'Univers Epique: Rencontres avec l'antiquit classique II.(Paris). (1992).

Pollmann, Karla F. L. Ambivalence and Moral: virtus in Roman epic.Festschrift H. J.

Tschiedel:355-366. 2008.

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