146 RUURD R. NAUTA
Trojan Horse (8–16) and the subsequent evocation of the steed of
Mars (18–22) set up the poet as a master of epic (which Statius, author
of the Thebaid, indeed was).^12 Such a poet may without incongruity
call up mythological or quasi-mythological characters, as Statius does
with the legendary hero Curtius, to whom he attributes an awed ad-
dress to Domitian (74–83). This enlisting of divine or quasi-divine
authority, as Kathleen Coleman has well shown, significantly enlarges
the range of the praise that the poet may utter.^13 The claims for that
praise are formulated towards the end of the poem (91–4), where Sta-
tius predicts longevity for the statue in words that allude to those in
which Horace (Carm. 3.30) and Ovid (Met. 15.871–9) assert the im-
mortality of their poetry, in the case of Horace in explicit contrast with
bronze statues and regal monuments. In this manner Statius suggests
that his poem may even outlive Domitian’s statue (as indeed it has, for
the statue shared the fate of most depictions of Domitian and was de-
molished after his death). So from the beginning to the end of the
poem, Statius presents himself not only as a representative spokesman
for the Roman community, but also as a powerful poet. In the one
identity he is like all others, in the other he is unique, but in neither is
it fitting to mention personal details, and such details are consequently
not to be found in the poem.
In many ways similar to Silvae 1.1 is the next imperial poem in the
collection, the concluding poem of Book 1, Silvae 1.6. The topic is a
day and a night of entertainments in the Amphitheatrum Flavium (the
Colosseum) offered by Domitian to the populace on the first day of
December, the Kalendae Decembres. The preface to Book 1 breaks
off at the point where Statius is about to specify how he composed this
poem (1.ep.30–2), and editors often supplement the text to say that
Statius recited the poem in the amphitheatre itself, but for various
12 On epic elements in Silv. 1.1 see Gibson 2006b, 169–70; Nauta 2006, 36.
13 Coleman 1999 (67–70 on the speech of Curtius). I doubt, however, whether
Coleman is right in arguing that the technique gives the poet access to a higher level
of language than he would otherwise command. She suggests e.g. that Curtius’ terms
genitor and proles could not have been employed by Statius in propria persona (69–
70), but in fact they often are (in 5.3 Statius addresses his own father twice as pater,
but five times as genitor), and similar remarks could be made of her other instances.
“Statius’ own voice” is not just “the voice of a social and political non-entity” (74),
but also the voice of a poet.