592. Pliny writes in 101 A.D. to record Silius' death. Silius was over seventy-five when he died.
593. Italicus might suggest that he came from the Spanish town of Italica. But Martial, who addresses him in several epigrams of almost servile flattery, would surely have claimed him as fellow-countryman had this been the case.
594. Pliny, loc. cit.; Tac. Hist. iii. 65.
595. His poem was already planned in 88; cp. Mart. iv. 14 (published 88 A.D.). Some of it was already written in 92; cp. legis, M. vii. 62 (published 92 A.D.). But the allusion to Domitian, iii. 607, must have been inserted after that date, while xiv. 686 points to the close of Nerva's principate. Statius, Silv. iv. 7. 14 (published 95 A.D.) seems to imitate Silius:
Dalmatae montes ubi Dite viso pallidus fossor redit erutoque concolor auro.
Sil. i. 233 'et redit infelix effosso concolor auro.' The last five books, compressed and markedly inferior to i-xii, may have been left unrevised.
596. In 101 A.D. at the age of seventy-five.
597. Epict. diss. iii. 8. 7.
598. Mart. xi. 48:
Silius haec magni celebrat monumenta Maronis, iugera facundi qui Ciceronis habet. heredem dominumque sui tumulive larisve non alium mallet nec Maro nec Cicero.