158 RUURD R. NAUTA
2.7 consoles Argentaria Polla, the widow of Lucan, in the context of a
celebration of the recurrence of her former husband’s birthday; these
two poems will receive some brief consideration at the end of this
section.
Two of the consolations are concerned with important imperial
freedmen, heads of Palatine bureaux, but in the one case the freedman
is the deceased, in the other the bereaved. Silvae 3.3 consoles the
equestrian Claudius Etruscus, who is also the addressee of Silvae 1.5,
on the death of his father, who had been a rationibus, i.e. head of the
department of finance. In Silvae 5.1, Flavius Abascantus, Domitian’s
ab epistulis, in charge of the imperial correspondence, is consoled on
the death of his wife Priscilla. For the latter poem we have the original
covering letter, which was included by the editor of Book 5 to com-
pensate for the absence of a preface to the book a a whole. In this let-
ter Statius explains, using the verb amare (5.1.ep.6–7), that Priscilla
had been close to his wife, and that her death has provided him with
an unsought-for opportunity to strengthen his friendship with Abas-
cantus; he again uses the verb amare (10), as well as the noun amicitia
(11). Elsewhere in the Silvae Statius likewise describes consolation as
a duty towards amici: in the poem on the death of his own slave-boy,
after recalling that he has often consoled others, he now asks for recip-
rocation (5.5.43–5):
nu nc tempus, amici,
quorum ego manantes oculos et saucia tersi
pectora: reddite opem, saeuas exsoluite grates.
Now is the time, friends, whose streaming eyes and wounded breasts I
stanched: return my help, pay the cruel debt of gratitude. (tr. SB)In the poem for Abascantus, the amicitia between him and Statius is
implied by the familiarity Statius displays with Abascantus’ marriage
and his mourning, but is not stressed, and the link between Abascantus
and Statius through their wives is not even mentioned. The reason
may be that too much attention to the workings of amicitia might have
exposed too clearly the claim Abascantus had on a service from Sta-
tius, whereas now Statius motivates his poem entirely from Abascan-
tus’ exemplary behaviour: egregia pietate meretur, “he deserves it by
his extraordinary devotion” (4). Similarly, in the poem for Claudius
Etruscus Statius’ friendship is only implied by his eyewitness account
of Etruscus’ grief (176 uidi), but the motivation given in the poem for