582. ii. 4. 5.
583. v. 4.
584. Cp. also the extravagant dedication of the Thebais.
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.