542. Dante regards him also as a Christian. This compliment was paid by the Middle Ages to not a few of the great classical authors. It was not even a fatal obstacle to have lived before the birth of Christ. Cicero, for instance, was believed to have been a Christian. The description of the Altar of Mercy at Athens (Th. xii. 493) has been regarded as a special reason for the Christianizing of Statius: cp. Verrall, Oxford and Cambridge Review, No. 1; Arturo Graf, Roma nella memoria del medio evo, vol. ii, ch. 17.
543. This statement does not, however, apply to the Silvae.
544. Ov. Am. i. 15. 14.
545. Merivale, Rom. Emp. viii. 80, 1.
546. Merivale, Rom. Emp. viii. 80, 1.
547. The sources for his story were the old Cyclic poem, the later epic of Antimachus, the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, that draw their plots from the Theban cycle of legend. The material thus given him he worked over in the Vergilian manner, remoulding incidents or introducing fresh episodes in such a fashion as to provide precise parallels to many episodes in the Aeneid. He also drew certain hints from the Phoenissae and Oedipus of Seneca: for details see Legras, Étude sur la Thébaide de Stace, part i, ch. 2, part ii, chh. 1 and 2. The subject had been treated also by one Ponticus, the friend of Propertius (Prop. i. 7. 1, Ov. Tr. iv. 10. 47) and possibly by Lynceus (Prop. ii. 34).
548. Legras, Les Légendes Théb., ch. iii. 4. The [Greek: Amphiaraou exelasis] mentioned by Suidas s.v. [Greek: Hom_eros] is sometimes identified with the Thebais; but it is more probably merely the title of a book of that epic. Still the fact that the [Greek: Amph. exel.] is given such prominence by Suidas does lend some support to the view that he was the chief character of the epic. He is certainly the most tragic figure.
549. Porphyr. ad Hor. A.P. 146.
550. Vergil had given six books to the wanderings of Aeneas; Statius must give six to the preparation and march of the Thebans!
551. See Legras, op. cit., pp. 183 ff.