The Introduction offers a broad survey of the body and the corpse in literature and world culture. The chapter opens with a detailed discussion of the violence of the so-called Islamic State, who use corpse abuse as a form of videographic terrorism and recruiting tool. Focus on the ‘spectacle’ of ISIS’ corpse mistreatment strategies functions as an entrée into a survey of the spectacle of power politics more broadly, from the Neo-Assyrian Empire to Rome to the French Revolution. The chapter also explores the semantic capaciousness of the body in western thought – its materiality, metaphoricity, sacrality – with examination of theorizing from Plato to Adriana Cavarero.

Chapter 5 looks at funeral denial and perversion in Statius’ Thebaid. The discussion of these motifs in Statius’ poem focuses on Creon’s funeral abnegation decree at Thebaid 11.661-4. This point marks the official moment when death rites are denied, but the theme has been building steadily over the course of the epic. The chapter also considers a series of bizarre funeral perversions, particularly the funerals for the fallen Argive leaders, all of whom receive a warping of traditional rites. It examines also the role of women and their attempts to provide funerals for their loved ones, specifically Hypsipyle, Argia and Antigone, and the Argive women. The final section details Iris’ ‘preservation’ of the dead Argive leaders, and the strange case of Maeon’s corpse in book 3.

Chapter 2 is a detailed examination of three scenes that target the most brutal form of epic mistreatment: decapitation and further abuses aimed at the severed head. The first section analyses the death and abuse of Pompey in Lucan’s BC 8. It turns next to abuses in the second half of Statius’ Thebaid: first Tydeus’ cannibalizing of Melanippus’ head in book 8, and second the Thebans’ abuse of Tydeus’ own corpse in book 9. The last section treats the decapitation of the Carthaginian general’s ally Asbyte by Theron in Silius’ Punica 2, and Hannibal’s subsequent abuse of Theron’s corpse in retaliation for Theron’s slaying of Asbyte. These scenes are all built explicitly upon model scenes in the Iliad and Aeneid which the later epicists have infused with post mortem abuse and grotesquery either ignored or only insinuated in the earlier poems. Through consideration of the ways in which Lucan, Statius, and Silius expand upon their models, this chapter offers a vivid glimpse into the evolution of the motif of corpse mistreatment from the ‘classic’ texts of Homer and Virgil, who had sought (in unique ways) to set a limit on the level of violence congruent with the world of epic.

Chapter 3 focuses on funeral denial and perversion in Lucan’s Bellum ciuile. The first section details the elderly survivor’s recollection of the civil war between Marius and Sulla in BC 2. This flashback is crucial for Lucan’s handling of the issues of funeral rites as it anticipates the horrors to come, particularly the warped funeral for Pompey in book 8. Lucan expands Pompey’s death, abuse, and funeral rites over the final three books. The disparate scenes create a patchwork of repeated but slightly altered funeral rites, none of which function as a legitimate ‘whole’. The next section considers Caesar’s position vis-à-vis funeral rites by exploring four scenes that demonstrate his rejection of or lack of interest in what happens to the human body after death (including his own body). The chapter ends with the witch Erichtho’s ‘zombie’ prophetic corpse-soldier, his quasi-prophecy predictive of further death, and Erichtho’s paradoxical, almost loving funeral for the corpse-soldier in book 6. The chapter argues briefly in closing that Lucan lingers on issues of death-in-life, and life-in-death, as a means of highlighting his perception of Neronian Rome as a slavish ‘death-world’.

Chapter 1 examines the motif of corpse treatment in the Iliad and Aeneid. The chapter sets a baseline for the motif by looking at these foundational works, with the intention of establishing a normative framework which will prove valuable for highlighting deviations from the norm in the treatment of corpses in imperial epic. The section on the Iliad demonstrates the basic pattern of corpse treatment in the poem by examining the aftermath of the deaths of Sarpedon, Patroclus, and Hector. The section closes with a discussion of Locrian Ajax’s abuse of Imbrius (Il. 13.201-5), a scene that problematizes the general picture of corpse treatment in the poem. The next section considers Virgil’s narrative strategies concerning the abuse of corpses in the Aeneid. While it is clear that Virgil departs from Homer in allowing a wider range of corpse abuse into his poem, in every case Virgil pulls back from describing it and blankets the abuse in narrative silence. The section offers a consideration of the civil war violence and corpse mistreatment from Marius and Sulla to Actium and the establishment of the principate, as a means of contextualizing some of the (silent) abuses contained within the Aeneid.

Chapter 6 investigates funeral rites in Silius’ Punica with special focus on the figure of Hannibal. The chapter’s interest concerns the Carthaginian leader’s perversions of Roman funeral practice when he conducts rites over the corpses of three slain Roman generals (L. Aemilius Paulus, T. Sempronius Gracchus, and M. Claudius Marcellus). This analysis sets the stage for an examination of Hannibal’s quasi-funeral rites that close the poem in book 17, mimicking and masking the triumphal parade for Scipio Africanus that simultaneously doubles as a funeral parade. The chapter closes by considering the role of the civil wars following the death of Nero in 68 CE, in particular importance for Silius of the burning of the Capitol and the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus.

Chapter 4 explores corpse abuse in both the Hellenistic and Flavian Argonautica poems, though the emphasis falls on Valerius’ epic. The treatment of the dead comes to the fore particularly in the intestine violence in Valerius’ depiction of the Lemnian massacre in VF 2 and in the Colchian war between the brothers Perses and Aeetes in book 6. In each case the conflict is tinged with the stain of Lucanesque civil war, culminating in a degeneration of violence with abuses aimed at the living and the dead. Valerius’ most extensive engagement with the theme comes during the Argonauts’ confrontation with king Amycus, whose rustic cave is a horror-show of corporal savagery and sadism. The major scene of corpse abuse in Apollonius’ Argonautica occurs when Jason murders Medea’s brother Absyrtus and ritually truncates his corpse. Though this particular mythic scene does not appear in Valerius’ epic, the influence of Apollonius’ poem sends clear shockwaves through the Flavian epic. While Valerius’ poem shows evidence of Apollonian and Lucanian influence in the handling of post mortem violence, it pushes back upon these more visceral expositions by reviving Virgilian distancing effects.