Eroi amici (e amanti) nella Tebaide di Stazio: dettagli erotizzanti nelle scene di battaglia e la loro perversione

This article focuses on the eroticising details that characterise the death of certain heroic 'couples' in the Thebaid. The first part analyses the iuncta mors of two brothers, the Thespiadae, killed at the hands of Tydeus and, by contrast, the perversion of erotic traits in the joint but discordant death of Eteocles and Polynices. The second part investigates the death of Hopleus, shot by an arrow while transporting the corpse of Tydeus, and the suicide of Dymas, who throws himself on Parthenopaeus' body to offer his chest as a tomb. The wellknown Virgilian model of Euryalus and Nisus is now restaged in light of a more explicit eroticism, which exalts the extreme loyalty of Hopleus and Dymas to their leaders. This paper shows how Statius exploits the iuncta mors to polarise the heroic code in two different directions: on the one hand, the brothers and friends who die fighting at Thebes are bound by such a strong love that it does not appear dissimilar to that which unites lovers; on t...