Post-Augustan Poetry From Seneca to Juvenal Part 45

585. It is hard to select from the _Silvae_. Beside, those poems from which quotations are given, iii. 5, v. 3 and 5 are best worth reading.

But the average level is high. The Sapphic and Alcaic poems (iv. 5 and 7) and the hexameter poems in praise of Domitian (i. 1, iii. 4, iv. 1 and 2) are the least worth reading.

586. The poem on the death of his father (v. 3) shows genuine depth of feeling, but its elaborate artificiality is somewhat distressing, considering the theme. (The same is true to a less degree of v. 5.) V. 3 must be, in portions at any rate, the earliest of the _Silvae_, for (l.

29) the poet states that his father has been dead but three months. But it records (ll. 219-33) events which took place long after that time (i.e. victory at Alba and failure at Agon Capitolinus). The poem must have been rewritten in part, ll. 219-33 at least being later additions.

The inconsistency between these lines and line 29 is probably due to the poet having died before revising bk. v for publication.

587. viii. 8; ii. 17; v. 6.

588. With Statius, as with Martial, the hendecasyllable always begins with a spondee. The Alcaics of iv. 5 and Sapphics of iv. 7 call for no special comment. They are closely modelled on Horace. The two poems fail because they are prosy and uninteresting, not through any fault of the metre, but it may be that Statius felt his powers hampered by an unfamiliar metre.

589. If _iuvenis_ be taken to refer to Statius, the poem must be an early work or depict an imaginary situation. The alternative is to take it as a vocative referring to Sleep.

590. _C.I.L._ vi. 1984. 9, in the 'fasti sodalium Augustalium Claudialium'. In MSS. Pliny and Tacitus, he is Silius Italicus, in Martial simply Silius or Italicus.

591. Plin. _Ep._ iii. 7. In the description of his life which follows, Pliny is the authority, where not otherwise stated.

592. Pliny writes in 101 A.D. to record Silius' death. Silius was over seventy-five when he died.

593. _Italicus_ might suggest that he came from the Spanish town of _Italica_. But Martial, who addresses him in several epigrams of almost servile flattery, would surely have claimed him as fellow-countryman had this been the case.

594. Pliny, loc. cit.; Tac. _Hist._ iii. 65.

595. His poem was already planned in 88; cp. Mart. iv. 14 (published 88 A.D.). Some of it was already written in 92; cp. _legis_, M. vii. 62 (published 92 A.D.). But the allusion to Domitian, iii. 607, must have been inserted after that date, while xiv. 686 points to the close of Nerva's princ.i.p.ate. Statius, _Silv._ iv. 7. 14 (published 95 A.D.) seems to imitate Silius:

Dalmatae montes ubi Dite viso pallidus fossor redit erutoque concolor auro.

Sil. i. 233 'et redit infelix effosso concolor auro.' The last five books, compressed and markedly inferior to i-xii, may have been left unrevised.

596. In 101 A.D. at the age of seventy-five.

597. Epict. _diss._ iii. 8. 7.

598. Mart. xi. 48:

Silius haec magni celebrat monumenta Maronis, iugera facundi qui Ciceronis habet.

heredem dominumque sui tumulive larisve non alium mallet nec Maro nec Cicero.

That it was the Tusculanum and not the c.u.manum of Cicero that Silius possessed is an inference from _C.I.L._ xix. 2653, found at Tusculum: 'D.M. Crescenti Silius Italicus Collegium salutarem.'

599. Enn. _Ann._ vii, viii, ix.

600. Sec p. 103.

601. i. 55.

602. iv. 727.

603. viii. 28.

604. x. 349.

605. ix. 484.

606. xvii. 523.

607. iv. 675.

608. xi. 387.

609. ix. 439.

610. ii. 395.

611. xvi. 288.

612. ii. 36.

613. iii. 222 and viii. 356.

614. xiii. 395.

615. e.g. the Funeral Games, the choice of Scipio (xv. 20), the Nekuia.

616. At Nola.

617. Cp. x. 628 'quod ... Laomedontiadum non desperaverit urbi'. The tasteless _Laomedontiadum_ as a learned equivalent for _Romanorum_ is characteristic. Silius has the _Aeneid_ in his mind when he chooses this word: his literary proclivities lead him astray; where he should be most strong he is most feeble.

618. _Vide infra_ for his treatment of Paulus' dead body after Cannae.

619. Trebia, iv. 480-703; Trasimene, v. 1-678; Cannae, ix. l78-x. 578.

620. Mart, vii. 90.

621. See p. 123, note.

622. Bk. vi.

623. xii. 212-67, where the death of Cinyps clad in Paulus' armour is described, are pretty enough, but too frankly an imitation of Vergil to be worth quoting. The simile 247-50 is, however, new and quite picturesque.

624. Sights of Naples, xii. 85; Tides at Pillars of Hercules, iii.

46; Legend of Pan, xiii. 313; Sicily, xiv. 1-50; Fabii, vii. 20; Anna Perenna, viii. 50; Bacchus at Falernum, vii. 102; Trasimenus, v. ad init.

625. See note on p. 13.

626. Plin. _Ep._ i. 13.

627. Mart. vii. 63.