The Punica is valuable for its historical accuracy, but it is one of the longest and one of the worst Epic poems ever written.
Scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio.
Pliny, Epist. iii. 7.
P. PAPINIUS STATIUS, circ. 60-100 A.D.
1. Life.
STATIUS.
Statius was born at Naples, but early removed to Rome, where he was carefully educated and spent the greater part of his life. His father was a scholar, rhetorician, and poet of some distinction, and acted for a time as tutor to Domitian. Statius had thus access to the Court, and repaid the patronage of Domitian by incessant and shameless flattery. After the completion of his Thebais he retired to Naples, which was endeared to him by its associations with Vergil, and there satisfied his real love of nature.
2. Works.
(1) The Thebais, an Epic poem in twelve Books, on the strife between the brothers Eteocles and Polynices, and the subsequent history of Thebes to the death of Creon.
The Thebaid became very famous: Juvenal (Sat. vii. 82-4) tells us