Classics 353
February 22, 2011

Paper #1 Topics

General Instructions for Papers

• Thebaid 4: three years pass, Argive forces muster (catalogue of warriors); the pathos of war, sense of doom
  
  
• departure of Polynices:
  

Thebaid 4.88-92
He in his hopes and prayers already held kingdom,
mother’s embrace, faithful sisters—and yet, he did look
back at Argia: stricken, extending her arms and leaning
far out from the highest turret, she drew her husband’s mind
and eyes back and turned his heart aside from sweet Thebes.

• Parthenopaeus: “marching without your mother’s knowledge” (4.248); Atalanta’s (4.318ff.) unsuccessful attempt to remove him from battle

Thebaid 4.251ff.
No man setting out for hazard’s grim game had face
more fair, none was more indulged for his peerless beauty;
nor did he lack courage, could he but reach full maturity.
What Lady of the Groves or divinity housed in flowing streams,
what Nymph did he fail to sweep off her feet with flaming desire?
Even Diana ...

• the other side: Thebans mustering (“… rather slowly, it must be said, / and ashamed of king and cause,” 4.349-50);
  Tiresias, Manto (necromancy); Cadmus and others appear (4.553ff.); forlorn ghosts of Argos portend Theban victory, 4.588ff.)

Thebaid 4.641-45 (Laius’ prophecy)
                                                Victory for Thebes is assured, have no
fear; your ferocious brother will not gain the kingdom … but
Furies will! And twofold sin, and by wretched blades
(just my luck!) your cruel father wins.” When he’s said all this,
he slipped off and left them to puzzle his knotty riddle.

• Events at Nemea: drought (Bacchus), Hypsipyle (nurse of Archemorus (“Bringer of Doom”) > Opheltes > Nemean Games
  
  
  
  
• Book 7: return to preparations for the war, armies stirred up by Mars; Bacchus’ concerns for his “unwarlike crowd” (7.168)
  Antigone (teichoscopia, “view from the walls;” cf. Iliad 3.122ff.) with her tutor Phorbas; Thebans & allies described (7.247ff.), e.g. Lapithaon & son Alatreus
  

Thebaid 7.295-303
                                                            Many—for age deceives—have
called them brothers. He’s the father, he the son; but
neither acts his age. The nymph Dercetis, shameless
in lusty desire for nuptials, molested Lapithaon long
before his time, a boy untried in bed, ignorant
of conjugal fires. Not long until handsome Alatreus
was born and son caught up with his father—then in youth’s
first flower—took on his features, and blurred their chronology.
So now they both relish the inexact term ‘brothers’--

• Jocasta marches out to the enemy camp, breasts bared & makes appeal to Polynices:

Thebaid 7.480-84, 534-38
Flanked by her daughters, (the sex now preferred!), she speeds up her
old woman’s pace, going farther than she has strength to.
Leaning on them, she comes up to the foe and, with breasts bared,
knocks at the hostile barricade; in quavering wails, she pleads
to be let in: “Open up! War’s unnatural mother
begs you. Your camp owes my womb some sort of perverse
justice!”

… Polynices—in view of all!—turned now to his mother’s kisses,
now to artless Ismene’s, now to Antigone’s pleas (more
tears stirred!), and, in the wild storm of his mind’s confusion, he’d
have renounced the kingdom, was eager to go—and mild Adrastus
approved—but Tydeus, mindful of righteous wrath, broke in ...

• Bacchus’ tigers; outbreak of war; Eunaeus the Bacchic priest (“… his cheeks showed their first growth of beard; / blushing, too, his corselet, unwarlike with Tyrian threads …,” 7.655ff)
  
  
  
  
• Amphiaraus: aristeia and mysterious death
  

Thebaid 7.816-22
                        Deep down, a sheer drop, the ground springs apart
in a vast chasm, frightening stars and shades in turn.
The huge crater swallows the man and engulfs the horses
struggling to cross; neither arms nor reins did he let slip
but, just as he was, drove the chariot straight into Tartarus
and, falling, flung one last look skyward and groaned as the ground
closed over him. Then, an aftershock drew the gaping
verges together and shut the light out from Avernus.