The Poetry of Statius

STONES IN THE FOREST 35

absence of an epitaph; they do not themselves constitute the epitaph,
but they dispense with the need for one.
A very common epigrammatic theme is the “ruined tomb”, whose
epitaph is no longer legible and therefore cannot perform its com-
memorative function; the irony is memorably noted by Juvenal:

... patriam tamen obruit olim

gl oria paucorum et laudis titulique cupido

haesuri saxis cinerum custodibus, ad quae

discutienda ualent sterilis mala robora fici,

quandoquidem data sunt ipsis quoque fata sepulcris.

(Juv. 10.142–6)

The nation was once overwhelmed by the ambition of a few, and their

desire for fame and an epitaph that will cling to the stones that guard

the ashes, which a barren fig tree is strong enough to shatter, since the

tombs themselves are also subject to fate.

Martial explicitly contrasts the shattered marble with the immortality
of literary text:

marmora Messallae findit caprificus et audax

dimidios Crispi mulio ridet equos:

at chartis nec furta nocent et saecula prosunt,

solaque non norunt haec monumenta mori.

(Mart. 10.2.9–12)

The fig tree splits Messalla’s marble, the bold muleteer laughs at Cris-

pus’ halved horses. But thefts do not harm paper and the centuries do it

good. These are the only memorials that cannot die.^39

So, what commemorates Glaucias, Melior’s parrot, Priscilla, and all
the other people (and the lion) that are mourned in the Silvae is, para-
doxically, not their inscribed epitaph—which might fall into ruin and
be effaced by time—but Statius’ epideictic lament, composed for the
moment, to last for eternity. In a funerary context, he frequently con-
trasts the immortality of his poetic commemoration with the ephem-
eral nature of funerary rites and offerings; this contrast is given poign-
ant expression right at the beginning of Silvae 5.1, where Statius
promises Priscilla that his epicedion will build her a tomb of eternal
remembrance:

39 Trans. Shackleton Bailey 1993. The theme of poetry outlasting a tomb is most
famously expressed at Hor. Odes 3.30.1 Exegi monumentum aere perennius, although
there the comparison is not with an inscription but with bronze statuary: see Nisbet-
Rudd 2004, 364–9.