STATIUS IN THE SILVAE 149
Statius elaborately stages himself; in paraphrase: “But whom do I
behold down the road at Cumae? Do my eyes deceive me or is it
really the Sibyl? Lyre, put aside your song: a holier bard (uates) be-
gins” (114–20)—and then the remainder of the poem is taken up by
the Sibyl’s song. Statius puts himself into the foreground only in his
quasi-ceremonial role, using the fiction of lyre-play and song to indi-
cate that he fulfils this role as an inspired poet, a uates. It is true that
Statius, as someone who regularly travelled between Rome and
Naples, profited by the new road; in the preface to Book 4 he writes
that a poetic letter he has written from Naples (Silv. 4.4) will now take
less long to deliver (4.ep.7–10). But the imperial beneficium (4.ep.8)
was given to the population at large, not to Statius personally, and for
that reason he does not individualise himself otherwise than as a
praise poet.
The situation is different in Silvae 4.2, which celebrates a banquet
given by Domitian to senators and knights (32–3) in the newly erected
imperial palace on the Palatine, which is enthusiastically described
(18–31).^20 At the beginning of the poem Statius presents himself as
playing the lyre (7), comparing himself to Virgil and Homer, who
praised and commemorated the feasts of Dido and Alcinous. This
comparison implies that the poem was not delivered at the event itself,
but composed afterwards,^21 as a few past tenses also indicate. Mostly,
however, Statius uses present tenses, and throughout he apostrophises
Domitian, thus recreating the situation before his own eyes and those
of his audience. In 1.6, which also shows Statius among the public at a
festive gathering, he juxtaposed the emperor’s ‘you’ with a ‘we’: “and
you ... have joined us for a common meal” (1.6.46–8). Now the ‘we’
is replaced by an ‘I’: “Is it you I behold... as I recline?” (14–6). Sta-
tius continues to speak in the singular (38–40, 52), and concludes by
stating that this day makes him as happy as the one on which he re-
ceived the crown at the Alban Games for a poem on Domitian’s victo-
ries (63–7). That is of course a reference to his identity as a praise
poet, but also a specific autobiographical detail. The reason for this
more individualised self-presentation must be that the poem is a
thanksgiving, as Statius states both in the preface to Book 4 (6–7) and
20 For a recent (and different) discussion of Silv. 4.2 see Malamud 2007.
21 Although it must be admitted that the comparison is any case not precise, be-
cause unlike Homer and Virgil, Statius was himself present at the meal he celebrates.