Occult(um) Aeaciden

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

Weaving “Catullan” song: Achilles’ performances in Statius’ Achilleid

It has already been discussed in Statian scholarship that Achilles’ first song in the Achilleid has close intertextual ties to Catullus’ Carmen 64, the epyllion about the wedding of Achilles’ parents. My aim in this paper is to show that this special intertextual relationship with Catullus 64 is not confined to Achilles’ first song, but extends to the other two passages as well, where the hero is presented as a singer (1. 572–583 and 2. 157–158). In all three cases, furthermore, the intertextual connection is strengthened by the use of weaving metaphors, which were also of central importance in Catullus’ epyllion