174 RUURD R. NAUTA
of the Greek tradition, even though combining this, as necessary, with
the requirements of the role of a Roman amicus.
One aspect of Statius’ ‘I’ in the Silvae has not been discussed in the
preceding pages, although it is in many ways the most important one,
that of what he thinks and feels, his opinions and attitudes. His work
of praising cannot be done in an ideologically neutral manner, and
Statius in the course of the Silvae takes a stand on many and various
issues: the active versus the contemplative life, the evaluation of lux-
ury, the proper treatment of slaves, the virtues required of imperial
freedmen, etc. But these opinions and the authority with which he
expresses them are only in a limited sense his own, due to the roles he
plays in his poems. On the one hand he resembles the Greek praise
poets he evokes in that his ‘I’ is a ‘representative I’, and that he claims
to express what everybody believes or, when that is not the case,
should believe; thus, his authority derives from the consensus he ex-
presses.^87 On the other hand, his role as an amicus demands a more
personal stance, but the type of asymmetrical amicitia which connects
him with his addressees allows of only the semblance of independent
opinion; thus, his authority is to certain extent borrowed from the
amici he praises. This implies that a full study of the Statian ‘I’ would
at the same time have to be a study of the Statian ‘you’.
87 On the ‘representative I’ in archaic Greek poetry cf. Slings 1990, 1–3.