Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric by Erik Gunderson

BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 185 absence of the father of the household, women take on a pronounced role in the family and indeed subvert the generic norms of epic. Statius’ Achilleid also receives helpful treatment. Bernstein usefully points out that whereas fosterage in the Thebaid is destructive (e.g., Linus, Opheltes), Chiron’s rearing of Achilles is for the most part positive. Again, the Silvae, which present a more positive image of foster fathers, are productively used as a point of comparison, but this time to make the point that there is thematic overlap between one of Statius’ epics and his occasional poems. At the same time, however, the positive relationship between Achilles and Chiron introduces problems in that it creates a rival to the relationship between Achilles and his mother. Bernstein is certainly right in this regard, and he proceeds to show that Statius productively exploits this tension between Chiron’s nurturing and Achilles’ natural human and divine instincts. Nonetheless, the tension between the gendered modes of rearing that are represented by Thetis and Chiron seems to be underplayed; in discussing the important lion simile at 1.857–863 (123), for instance, Bernstein relates the trainer to Deidamia, but Thetis is the more likely point of contact between simile and narrative. If so, the more pressing matter seems to be the tension between Chiron’s hyper-masculine teaching and Thetis’ course of instruction about how to act like a girl. Overall, however, there are a lot of beneficial insights in this chapter. The chapter on the Punica focuses on individual characters. Hannibal, not surprisingly given the Vergilian Dido, is fated to repeat the mistakes and errors of his ancestors. For all his martial and paternal virtues, Fabius Cunctator ultimately proves to be an insufficient hero in that his absence from the army leads to disaffection from the troops. Pacuvius’ situation offers an example of how to act in accordance with virtue even if it goes against parental authority. Read against such characters, Scipio emerges as the true hero of the poem: he has both divine and human approval, and his dual descent (from Jupiter and from Scipio the Elder) naturally enhances his status. Bernstein relates Scipio’s public and personal virtues to the imperial household and Domitian, with the important caveat that blood relations (i.e., paternity and ancestry) do not ensure legitimacy or performance, a point that leads to the penultimate chapter on the way in which Flavian epic, building upon the model of Lucan, constructs kinship in a way that counters the focus in Augustan epic upon the importance of the bloodlines of Julius Caesar and Augustus. In sum, this book advances the study of Flavian epic. Its focus on the theme of family provides a productive way into these four epics and their relationship to the Roman poetic tradition; the complexity of the topic and the scope of the book preclude any word from being definitive, but Bernstein’s work will be essential to any discussion of the topic. Georgetown University Charles McNelis Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric. Edited by Erik Gunderson. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 2009. Pp. x, 313. In rhetorical studies, as in many areas of classics these days, there has developed somewhat of a split between traditionalists, who see rhetoric primarily as an educational system intended to teach students how to speak persuasively, and modernists, who look on rhetorical and oratorical texts primarily as social documents. The first group tends to work internally; the second tends to look at rhetoric from the outside. I am a traditionalist. I 186 PHOENIX am one of those people who are fascinated by what Henderson calls in the conclusion to this book “reams of mind-rot awaiting the unwary” (279) in manuals of rhetoric. I have even been known to engage in “mind-numbing enumeration” (287). This book tries to satisfy proponents of each view of rhetoric. Some of the essays are very traditional (e.g., Heath); others deal with what is referred to in this volume as “antirhetoric ” (279), what people like me would probably call “non-rhetoric,” discussions that deal not with the rhetorical system, but with the implications of that system for ancient societies...

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