Abstract

Here in the Achilleid Statius catalogues the contributions of Greek towns to Agamemnon's expedition against Troy. Every item of equipment is appropriate to its origin. There is one puzzle, however: why is it that murorum tormenta are the peculiar contribution of Pylos and Messene? O. A. W. Dilke suggests that the proximity of classical Messene to Mt Ithome would have reminded Statius of the siege of that place by the Spartans in 464–59 b.c., when they were aided by the Athenians, experts in siege warfare. This solution is undoubtedly ingenious but, based as it is upon association, it places this last entry in a quite different category from the previous entries: all the preceding items have been very definite products of their places of origin. K. von Barth, while noting the not unparalleled anachronism, attempts to account in another way for the siege-engines: ‘quia ibi silvae crassissimas arbores habent’. But there is no evidence to support this: Messenia features neither in the pages of Theophrastus or Pliny as a source of quality timber, nor in the poets as an area which is characterised by the stoutness of its trees. These theories pay insufficient attention to the verb tendunt, the vox propria for exerting a strain on rope, making it taut.