48 HARM-JAN VAN DAM
whole house is black”) // nigra domus questu (Stat. Silv. 5.1.19: the
house is black in complaining); uertit in hanc toruos Rhamnusia lumi-
nis orbes (89: “the dame of Rhamnus turned her gloomy eyes to her”)
// attendit toruo tristis Rhamnusia uultu (Stat. Silv. 2.6.74: “the
gloomy dame of Rhamnus marked him frowning”).^14 Imitation in the
Sylva in Scabiem is more mature, such as
Ille ego sum, o socii, quamquam ora animosque priores
Fortuna eripuit, qui quondam heroa canendo
Proelia et exhaustos Rhoeteo in Marte labores,
Ibam alte spirans ...
(245–8)
He I am, my friends, who sometime was proud of singing the praise of
heroic battles and toil exhausted in Trojan warfare; but now Fortune
took away my former high-flown speech.certe ego, magnanimum qui facta attollere regum
ibam altum spirans Martemque aequare canendo.
quis sterili mea corda situ, quis Apolline merso
frigida damnatae praeduxit nubila menti?
(Stat. Silv. 5.3.10–4)
He I am for sure whose lofty inspiration would exalt the deeds of great-
so uled kings and match their warfare in my lay. Who has shadowed my
spirit with barren neglect, who drawn chill clouds over my sentenced
mind, Apollo sunk?Here Poliziano refers to his plans for an epic on Achilles and Giuliano
dei Medici which were thwarted, and in doing so he imitates not only
Statius’ funereal poem on his father (5.3), but also alludes to the open-
ing of his Achilleid (4–5 ire per omnem ... heroa) and to Domitian-
Mars in Statius’ first poem (1.1.18 exhaustis Martem ... armis), thus
suggesting the equation Giuliano-Mars.^15
When Poliziano’s genius had come into full bloom, his relations
with Statius became more independent. He published four separate
14 Also 15–6 Ac tecum, infaustus uates, consortia luctus / et repeto et querulam
pectine plango lyram with Stat. Silv. 2.1.26–8 et nunc heu uittis et frontis honore
soluto / infaustus uates uersa mea pectora tecum / plango lyra ..., Albiera’s last
words in 189 ff. draw heavily on those of Priscilla in Stat. Silv. 5.1.177, see Perosa
1954, 42–3.
15 For more imitations, see Perosa 1954, 21 and passim, also ad 245–8 (but without
reference to 1.1 or the Achilleid). Compare also 72: Stat. Silv. 2.4.15; 324: Stat. Silv.
2.1.42.