ABSTRACT
We only have a (long) fragment of the Achilleid, an epic poem by Statius, but it is so strikingly original that it has generated interest both in medieval culture and in recent times. The fortunes of this fragment have made it appear as a complete, autonomous work of some sort, a text in the fullest sense, and this approach has occluded other questions that we may want to ask. They are about the relationship between the extant text and the project of the entire poem and the political implications of the story as it is narrated by Statius.
