STATIUS IN THE SILVAE 173
ConclusionThe above survey of both the imperial and the non-imperial poems in
the Silvae has shown that Statius’ self-presentation is consistent but
varied. The role in which he addresses his addressees is mostly that of
the praise poet, and this role is constructed with the help of certain
standard fictions, such as singing and lyre-playing and performing at
the ceremony itself. These fictions allow Statius to speak with a cer-
tain authority, invoking gods, giving instructions, interpreting the
situation, challenging the literary and historical tradition, and in doing
all this praising the addressee; his access to the world of mythology
also allows him to invest his praises in certain cases with the authority
of divine or quasi-divine spokespersons. But this role, precisely be-
cause it is to a large extent fictional, needs to be combined with other
roles that ground Statius’ utterances in his position in the real world.
In the poems to the emperor this is the role of a representative subject,
except in the one poem where Statius is personally involved by paying
his thanks for an invitation to the palace. In the poems for non-
imperial addressees his role is basically that of a friend, or rather of an
amicus, because the Roman term also covers asymmetrical relation-
ships that may be sociologically described as ‘patronage’. In the role
of representative subject no individuality is called for, and no autobio-
graphical details are offered; in the role of amicus Statius needs to be
present as a person, but the manner in which this happens varies ac-
cording to the relationship with the addressee (which sometimes de-
mands articulation of the patronage relationship, in other cases some
self-disclosure as a sign of intimacy, etc.), as well as according to the
genre (consolations may need to invoke Statius’ own grief, descrip-
tions to specify the visit at which the described object was seen, etc.).
Generally, however, little autobiographical information is provided,
and what is provided is closely connected to Statius’ identity as a
poet: this holds for the small estate at Alba Longa, exploited as the
setting for a life of Horatian contentment in 3.1, 4.5 and 4.8, and for
the Virgilian complex of Naples, otium and poetry (but combined with
old age, not youth) introduced in 3.2, elaborated in the autobiographi-
cal conclusion to Book 3 and taken up again in 4.4. In general the
non-imperial poems in Book 4 are closer to the Roman tradition of
autobiographical poetry than those in Books 1–3 and again in Book 5,
in which the poet stages himself as the less individualised praise poet