American Journal of Philology 138 (2017) 305–329 © 2017 by Johns Hopkins University Press ODI(TQUE MORAS): ABRIDGING ALLUSIONS TO VERGIL, AENEID 12 IN STATIUS, THEBAID 12 KYLE GERVAIS u Abstract. I argue that various allusions to Aeneid 12 in Thebaid 12 abridge the earlier narrative, cutting out difficult scenes so that Theseus and Creon’s duel becomes a more straightforward battle between right and wrong than that of Aeneas and Turnus. These “abridging allusions” are one of several techniques used to thematize narrative speed in Thebaid 12, in contrast to the thematization of delay in earlier books. I first discuss delay as a central feature in the two epics, then examine Statius’ abridging allusions and situate them in various ongoing debates about the poem and its relationship with the Aeneid. 1. INTRODUCTION INTERTEXTUAL STUDIES, WHICH COMPRISE the dominant strand of recent scholarship on Statius’ Thebaid, 1 have given special attention to the epic’s final book, both because of its important and still debated significance to interpretation of the poem as a whole and because of its many intertextual links to other works. 2 In particular, the brief final duel between Theseus and Creon at Thebaid 12.730–81 points to several inter- texts both within and outside the epic genre. 3 The most salient of these is 1 Newlands et al. 2015, 11–12, in the introduction to Dominik et al. 2015. Seven chapters in that volume are dedicated explicitly to the Thebaid and its predecessors or contemporaries, and most others pay attention to intertextual matters. This intertextual focus is part of a broader practice in scholarship on Flavian epic: e.g., Manuwald and Voigt 2013, Augoustakis 2014. 2 Studies with a strong intertextual focus include: Malamud 1995; Braund 1996; Har- die 1997; Dietrich 1999; Lovatt 1999; Pagán 2000; Dominik 2003; Pollmann 2004; Ganiban 2007, 207–32; McNelis 2007, 152–77; Sacerdoti 2008; Bessone 2008 and 2011, 128–99; Criado 2015; Gervais 2015a. 3 Because Theseus and Creon fight over a question of burial, the end of the Iliad is relevant. Lucan’s Bellum Civile is relevant for the same reason: Lovatt 1999 observes that Creon’s order forbidding burial of the Argive dead assimilates him to Caesar, who issues a similar order after Pharsalus. Most recently, Bessone 2011 and Criado 2015 have examined Theseus’ actions in Thebaid 12 in comparison to the character’s portrayal in Euripides’ Suppliant Women.