P.PapiniusStatius, the celebrated poet. Our information with regard to his personal history is miserably defective. He is named by no ancient author, except Juvenal, so that any knowledge we possess of his family or career has been gleaned from incidental notices in his own writings, and many of these are couched ill very ambiguous language. It appears that under the skilful tuition of his father he speedily rose to fame, and became peculiarly renowned for the brilliancy of his extemporaneous effusions, so that he gained the prize three times in the Alban contests (see Sueton. Dom. 4); but having, after a long career of popularity, been vanquished in the quinquennial games (Suet. Dom. l.c.) he retired to Naples, the place of his nativity, along with his wife Claudia whom he married in early life, to whom he was tenderly attached, and whose virtues he frequently commemorates. From the well-known lines of Juvenal, s. 7.82,--
we should infer that Statius, in his earlier years at least, was forced to struggle with poverty, but he appears to have profited by the patronage of Domitian (Silv. 4.2), whom in common with Martial and other contemporary bards he addresses ill strains of the most fulsome adulation. The tale that the emperor, in a fit of passion. stabbed him with a stilus, seems to be as completely destitute of foundation as the notion that he was a Christian. Dodwell fixes upon A. D. 61 and A. D. 96, as the epoch of his birth and of his death, but these conclusions are drawn from very uncertain premises. Those dates, which can be ascertained with precision, will be noted as we review his productions in succession.[W.R]
- Curritur ad vocem jucundam et carmen amicae
- Thebaidos, laetam fecit quum Statius Urbem
- Promisitque diem : tanta dulcedinie captos
- Afficit ille animos, tantaque libidine vulgi
- Auditur, sed, quum fregit subsellia versu,
- Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendat Agavem,--