THE EQUINE CUCKOO 83
That is, the statue laid claim not merely to the Forum Square of Rome,
but to heaven itself. Seeking as it did to dominate the Forum Square,
the Ecus Maximus of Domitian was a very large, very aggressive
equine cuckoo in what had been intended to be a Julian nest. The Dei-
fied Julius and the Deified Augustus dwell in their temples beyond the
confines of the Forum Romanum, but the still-living Domitian is per-
manently there at the City’s very heart. Still more, even heaven itself,
in the form of all the deified Flavians, comes down to this very spot
when night falls, that same night which poets conventionally celebrate
as the time of peace:
hoc et sub nocte silenti,^23
cu m superis terrena placent, tua turba relicto
labetur caelo miscebitque oscula iuxta.
(Silv. 1.1.94–6)
In the silence of the night, when earthly things are pleasing to the gods
above, your folk will leave the heavens and glide down to it, and join
their kisses with yours in a close embrace.The mighty horse stands at the world’s very heart; it stands, that is, in
the self-same place where earth and heaven meet; and all three—
Forum, earth, and heaven—belong to the Flavian dynasty.^24
23 I read hoc with Courtney 1990, 5 against the huc of the Itali (accepted by Shack-
leton Bailey 2003, 38).
24 Time and Fortune would of course disprove Statius’ prophecy. Quite what hap-
pened to the equestrian statue will never be known for certain, but the imagination is
easily stimulated by Pliny the Younger's description in his panegyric to Trajan of the
joy with which the people destroyed the images of the discredited emperor: illae [sc.
statuae] autem
iuuabat illidere solo superbissimos uultus, instare ferro, saeuire securibus, ut si sin-
gulos ictus sanguis dolorque sequeretur. nemo tam temperans gaudii seraeque laeti-
tiae, quin instar ultionis uideretur cernere laceros artus truncata membra, postremo
truces horrendasque imagines obiectas excoctasque flammis, ut ex illo terrore et
minis in usum hominum ac uoluptates ignibus mutarentur (Pan. 52.4–5). For the
picture compare Juv. 10.58–64 descendunt statuae restemque secuntur,/ ipsas deinde
rotas bigarum inpacta securis/ caedit et inmeritis franguntur crura caballis./ iam
strident ignes, iam follibus atque caminis/ ardet adoratum populo caput et crepat
ingens/ Seianus, deinde ex facie toto orbe secunda/ fiunt urceoli, pelues, sartago,
matellae.