The Poetry of Statius

26 KATHLEEN M. COLEMAN

The contrast is patent, the licit relationship expressed with formulaic
brevity, the illicit displaying a bold adaptation of the “cause of death”
motif.
The parodic quality of these epitaphs in Ovid is predicated on psy-
chological realism; the epitaph for Corinna’s parrot, for example, re-
flects actual practice, in that epitaphs for pets survive from both Greek
and Roman Antiquity. Hadrian’s horse, Borysthenes, is a famous ex-
ample (CIL 12.1122); more poignant, perhaps, for the anonymity of its
owner, is the epitaph for the horse Speudusa (“Quickie”):

D. M.

Gaetula harena prosata,

Gaetulo equino consita,

cursando flabris compara,

aetate abacta uirgini

Speudusa Lethen incolis.

(CIL 6.10082 = Courtney 1995, no. 200)

To the shades of the dead. Born from the sands of Gaetulia, sired in a

Gaetulian stud, equal to the winds in speed, torn away from your unsul-

lied youth, you live in Lethe, Quickie.

The dedicatory formula, d(is) m(anibus), and the summary of
Speudusa’s career and distinguishing characteristics, are predicated
exactly upon the regular pattern of human commemoration. Likewise,
in Ovid’s epitaph for the parrot, the anthropomorphization of the crea-
ture is central to the success of the literary pastiche:

ossa tegit tumulus, tumulus pro corpore magnus,

quo lapis exiguus par sibi carmen habet:

COLLIGOR EX IPSO DOMINAE PLACVISSE SEPVLCRO.

ORA FVERE MIHI PLVS AVE DOCTA LOQVI.

(Am. 2.6.59–62)

A mound covered his bones, a mound large enough to accommodate his

little body, on which a small stone displays an inscription matching its

size: “MY VERY TOMB TESTIFIES THAT I WAS MY MISTRESS’

PET. I WAS SKLLED AT SPEAKING BEYOND ANY OTHER

BIRD.”^18

In funerary epigram the deceased frequently speaks in propria per-
sona,^19 although in elegy this trope is rare.^20 There is, however, a spe-

18 For the possibility that PLVS AVE simultaneously means “more than ‘Hail!’ ”,
see McKeown 1998, 144.
19 Tolman 1910, 2–3.