Subverted Katabasis: Trespass, Strife, and Loss in Statius’s Thebaid

Mariah Smith (University of Kansas)

Amphiaraus is the first of the Seven against Thebes to die in Statius’s Thebaid, abruptly plummeting directly from the battlefield into the underworld. Statius intentionally follows the tradition of epic katabaseis, those underworld journeys in the Aeneid and the Odyssey. In literary precedents of the Thebaid the katabasis adheres to a predictable and set pattern: the hero travels to the underworld, taking in the notable sights, and gaining knowledge through interacting with the dead, often assisted by necromantic rites. The episode is completed by the anabasis, the return from the underworld.

Yet, according to this model, the katabasis of Amphiaraus seems incomplete and truncated. He does not communicate with the dead, not even through necromancy, and so he does not learn anything from them - instead, he joins their ranks. Amphiaraus, therefore, does not have an anabasis. Two other scenes from the Thebaid, characterized by Vessey (1973) as connected supernatural episodes, perform the same function as these missing elements of an epic katabasis. In book four, Tiresias investigates the appearance of portents by using necromancy, and learns from the ghost of Laius what will happen. But earlier in book two, Laius experiences an anabasis when he ascends from the underworld for a dream-visit with his grandson, Eteocles. Statius has not only divided the standard epic katabasis, but he has also inverted the order, placing the anabasis first and the descent into the underworld last.

This paper focuses on Amphiaraus’s katabasis and Statius’s use of it to further themes that are present throughout the rest of the narrative: the transgression of boundaries, the violence within families, and the loss of knowledge. The character of the katabasis is not only self-referential but also serves to challenge Statius’s epic predecessors. Working within the accepted epic framework, he uses these earlier stories to provoke a reader’s expectation which he then subverts.