An early version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Canadian West hosted by the University of British Columbia in March 1998. I would like to thank that audience and also Martha Malamud for their comments.

1. Henderson, John, A Roman Life: Rutilius Gallicus on Paper and in Stone (Exeter 1998)Google Scholar.

2. The term epicedion means a poem of lament by the tomb, as Silu. 5.3 is (35–40). But epicedia and consolationes have much in common and the terms are often used interchangeably. For general discussions of Statius’ epicedia and consolationes see especially van Dam, Harm-Jan, Silvae Book II: A Commentary (Leiden 1984), 63–68Google Scholar; Hardie, A., Statius and the Silvae: Poets, Patrons and Epideixis in the Graeco-Roman World (Liverpool 1983), 103–10Google Scholar; Newmyer, S.T., The Silvae of Statius: Structure and Theme (Leiden 1979), 19–24Google Scholar, 64–74. For discussion of 5.3 in particular see Fantham, Elaine, Roman Literary Culture: From Cicero to Apuleius (Baltimore and London 1996), 174–176Google Scholar; Hardie, op. cit., 5–14; and Vessey, D.W.T., Statius and the Thebaid (Cambridge 1973), 49–54Google Scholar.

3. Gossage, A.J., ‘Papinius, the Father of Statius’, Romanitas 6–7 (1965), 171–79Google Scholar, at 171, is unduly sceptical that the family was Greek.

4. Traglia, A., ‘II Maestro di Stazio’, RCCM 7 (1965), 1128–34Google Scholar, argues that the father’s career as epic poet is much more important than his role as teacher of the epics of others. I prefer to see the two roles in balance, each necessary to the other.

5. This paper focuses on the symbolic lives of Statius and his father as they are presented in Silu. 5.3. See below for some details and for fuller accounts of their actual lives see the excellent treatments of Coleman, K.M, Silvae IV (Oxford 1988)Google Scholar, and Hardie (n.2 above).

6. See Saller, Richard P., Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a comprehensive study of pietas in legal and social terms.

7. A more famous unbuilt shrine (fanum) is the one Cicero thought of building for his daughter Tullia. See Shackleton Bailey, D.R., Cicero’s Letters to Atticus Vol.5 (Cambridge 1966), 404–13Google Scholar, and most recently Erskine, Andrew, ‘Cicero and the Expression of Grief’, in Braund, S.M. and Gill, C. (eds.), The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature (Cambridge 1997), 36–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. See Juvenal 7.84f. on Statius: tanta dulcedine captos/adficit ille animos. It is most unlikely of course that Juvenal intends dulcedo as a complimentary description of Statius’ style, given his own savage style and his prejudice against Greeks.

9. Saller (n.6 above), 75–80, reviews the evidence for the Roman definition of familia.

10. Argued persuasively by Keith, A.M., Engendering Rome: Women in Latin Epic (Cambridge 2000), 8–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. The text is difficult. Heinsius suggested ibi me instead of tibi and Courtney considers reorganising 62–63, but the general point seems clear enough.

12. Önnerfors, Alf, Vaterporträts in der Römischen Poesie: Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung von Horaz., Statius und Ausonius (Stockholm 1974), 99Google Scholar; cf. Vollmer, F., Publius Papinius Statius Silvarum Libri (Leipzig 1898), 530Google Scholar.

13. The lyric meters of Silu. 4.5 and 4.7 are only the most obvious examples of Horatian influence in the Siluae. Henderson (n. 1 above), 111, discusses Statius’ reference to Odes 3.30 in Silu. 1.1.91–94. Hardie (n.2 above), 154f., compares Silu. 1.1.91–93 with Odes 3.30.1ff. and Ovid Met. 15.870ff.

14. See Galinsky, Karl, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton 1996), 350–55Google Scholar, on Horace, Odes 3.30. Note that both Horace and the other poets (but not Statius) whom Galinsky cites for comparison all refer to real buildings.

15. Champlin, Edward, Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250 (Berkeley 1991), 170Google Scholar.

16. For example, Champlin (n.15 above), 173, describes the will of a Gaul from this period detailing the cella, exedra, altar and grounds of his desired monument.

17. See n.26 below.

18. Rawson, Elizabeth, Intellectual Life in the Late Roman Republic (London 1985), 66–76Google Scholar, 98.

19. See Fantham (n.2 above), 199f., for a survey of evidence that teaching was a reasonable occupation for a ‘gentleman’ by the time of the Flavians.

20. According to the chart of social status of Roman poets in White, Peter, Promised Verse: Poets in the Society of Augustan Rome (Cambridge MA 1993), 211–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, Martial is an equestrian (5.13. If.) while Statius’ mention of a gold bulla at 5.3.116–20 is too vague to be conclusive evidence for his status. White, Peter, ‘The Friends of Martial, Statius, and Pliny, and the Dispersal of Patronage’, HSCP 79 (1979), 265–300Google Scholar, offers a detailed comparison of the social connections of Statius and Martial.

21. Statius could be wrapping realism in politeness. See the amusing report by Pliny of his own early literary efforts: quattuordecim natus annos Graecam tragoediam scripsi. ‘qualem?’ inquis. nescio; tragoedia uocabatur (‘When I was fourteen I wrote a Greek tragedy. “What sort?” you ask. I don’t know; it was just called a tragedy’, Ep. 7.4.2). As Fantham (n.2 above), 220, stresses, literature is an activity for the gentleman of leisure more often than it is something that he passively appreciates. Even if the fourteen-year-old Pliny’s tragedy was truly terrible, he was at least engaged in something honourable.

22. See Connors, Catherine, ‘Imperial Space and Time: The Literature of Leisure’, in Taplin, Oliver, ed., Literature in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A New Perspective (Oxford 2000), 492–518Google Scholar, for a discussion of the ways the power of the Empire is reflected even in informal verse.

23. See Richard Saller, P., Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge 1982), 94–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an excellent review of the concept of merit. He concludes that the most important qualification for holding office in the early Empire is having good friends and a good reputation.

24. Lendon, J.E., Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World (Oxford 1997), 98–101Google Scholar.

25. See Lendon (n.24 above), 38, and Morford, M.P.O., ‘The Training of Three Roman Emperors’, Phoenix 22 (1968), 57–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 67.

26. Hardie (n.2 above), 151 and passim, has argued that the emphasis on career and encomium in the poetry of Statius is characteristic of the Greek epideictic tradition and therefore a distinctive product of his own family background.

27. Hardie (n.2 above), 173.

28. See Saller (n.6 above), 121 and passim, on life expectancy in the Roman world.

29. Statius has evidently chosen the literal-minded solution to the problem of the gates in Aeneid 6. The shade of Statius’ father will come through the horn gate, which is the gate of true dreams. Aeneas and the Sibyl, on the other hand, leave by the ivory gate, the gate of false dreams, presumably because they are living people and not shades.

30. Delarue, Although Fernand, Stace, Poète épique: Originalité et cohérence (Leuven and Paris 2000), 96fGoogle Scholar., is right to argue that Statius does not incorporate Roman exempla into his poems to anything like the degree of other Latin poets, he surprisingly omits this passage from his discussion.

31. For detailed discussion of the relationship between Greek myth and Roman religion see Feeney, Denis, Literature and Religion at Rome: Cultures, Contexts, and Beliefs (Cambridge 1998), 47–75Google Scholar. Earlier accounts of the life of Statius’ father over-emphasise the change in the school’s curriculum when it moved from Naples to Rome.

32. Wardle, D., Valerius Maximus: Memorable Deeds and Sayings, Book I (Oxford 1998), 106–08Google Scholar, helpfully describes the problems with Valerius’ version of the story.

33. The story of the dream is found in Plutarch’s Sulla, but he tells us that it is from Sulla’s memoirs (Sulla 37.1). Sulla also wrote in the memoirs, according to Plutarch, that the most reliable advice he received was what the god sent him in dreams (ibid. 6.6). The story of the statuette is not directly attributed to the memoirs but it too must have been in a source accessible to Statius, perhaps even Valerius Maximus directly.

34. The translation of Wardle (n.31 above), 38.

35. Griset, Emmanuele, ‘II Problema della “Selvae” V,3 di Stazio’, RSC 10 (1962), 128–32Google Scholar, contrasts Statius’ uncertainty about the location of his father’s shade in the first part of the poem with his assumption at the end of the poem that his father’s shade is in the underworld and (along with other examples) concludes that the discrepancy is evidence for composition at different times. More likely, the parade of options is a guarantee of getting the right one. That said, many scholars have wondered about the chronology of the poem’s composition. Statius says that this poem is the first after three months of silence following his father’s death. Because Statius’ father was working on a poem about the eruption of Vesuvius when he died (5.3.205–08), it is commonly assumed he must have died soon after 79, given the emphasis elsewhere on speed in occasional poetry. References to the Alban victory and Capitoline defeat, however, belong to the early 90s and certainly Statius’ father is dead before the Thebaid is finished (233–38). Delarue (n.30 above), 39, provides a convenient summary with bibliography of the issue. It is my opinion that the poem on Vesuvius could have been a scientific epic in the manner of Lucan rather than an occasional poem, and that in any case, Statius may have worked on this poem over several years, as a project especially close to his heart.

36. Of course the really valuable monument in this story is the gold statue of Domitian which Priscilla commissions on her deathbed (5.1.188–93).

37. Even the Muses can be dumb with grief (Theb. 8.553). Statius frequently comments on the appropriate lapse in time between death and consolation. In his cover letter to Silu. 2 he suggests a consolation needs an apology if it comes too quickly after the death. In 2.1 he admits fearing that he is trying to console too soon and it turns out that his poem is set seven days after the death of Glaucias (8, 146). The consolation to Abascantus is written a year after his wife’s death and Statius apologises for its lateness (5.1.16–20). Both of the elegies for animals are written on the day the animal died (2.4, parrot, and 2.5, lion). Maybe three months is just the right length of delay. Seneca discusses the timing of a consolation at length in his letter to his mother after his exile (Ad Helviam matrem 1). There is an interesting variation in Statius’ poem on the death of one of his slaves (5.5.27f.): he wants to make poetry, but in his grief it all comes out badly.