THE EQUINE CUCKOO 73
das Cattis Dacisque fidem: te signa ferente
et minor in leges gener et Cato Caesaris irent.
(Silv. 1.1.22–8)
The setting matches the work. Here to face it he that, weary of wars,
first showed our divinities the way to heaven by the gift of his adopted
son, opens wide his threshold. And from your countenance he learns
how much gentler in arms are you, you who find it hard to rage even
against the madness of foreign enemies, and who pledge your faith to
Cattians and Dacians. If only it had been you bore the standard, his son-
in-law, less Great than once he was, and Cato would have submitted to
the lawful rule of Caesar.To put it in the dullest topographical prose, the horse faces towards
the temple of the Deified Julius. Julius is not attacked directly by the
poet, but an opposition is perhaps already being hinted at in the phrase
obuia limina, while the words fessus bellis not only seem to hint at the
superior staying power of Domitian, but also subtly evoke the endless
succession of wars that Caesar fought—first against foreigners but
then against Romans. From the calm and peaceful expression on
Domitian’s face, Caesar is also said to learn how much “gentler in
arms” the present-day emperor is: a pointed reference, of course, to
the famed Caesaris clementia,^10 which, it is implied, Domitian, and
perhaps the Flavians generally, surpass. The real bite of criticism,
however, can be heard in that knife-twisting little nec in line 26: if
Domitian is swift to anger “not even” against foreign foes, we begin to
remember how swift Caesar might be said to have been to raise his
sword against his own people.^11 The founder of the Julio-Claudian
line, that is, initiated civil war, while the Flavians, whose tradition
Domitian exemplifies and continues, ended it: or, as the admiring hero
of the early Republic Curtius goes on to say when he pops his head up
from his lacus close by at Silv. 1.1.80–1 in order to take a look and see
what is happening, tu ciuile nefas ... / longo Marte domas (“you with
10 For the Caesaris clementia see in particular Suet. Jul. 73–5. A degree of cyni-
cism is evident, however, from antiquity itself, and even Suetonius continues (Jul. 76)
praegrauant tamen cetera facta dictaque eius, ut et abusus dominatione et iure caesus
existimetur. English-speaking students of the period are still also liable to be influ-
enced by the power of Sir Ronald Syme’s withering prose: Syme 1939, 159–60. For a
much more measured view of how the theme is treated by Lucan, the poet whose
artistic portrayal of Caesar clearly shaped that of Statius himself, see Leigh, 1997, 53–
68; and also Fantham 1992, 164–5 (on lines 439–525).
11 Consider e. g. Luc. 1.147 ferre manum et numquam temerando parcere ferro,
2.439–40 Caesar in arma furens nullas nisi sanguine fuso/ gaudet habere uias.