STONES IN THE FOREST 39
to replace its dilapidated predecessor on his estate at Surrentum. The
climax of the poem is reached when Hercules himself appears in an
epiphany to Statius and praises his benefactor in a series of prayer-
formulae. This technique of employing a mythological spokesperson
is inherited from the Hellenistic poets by the Augustans, and thence
by Statius.^44 The spot where Hercules delivers his speech is signifi-
ca nt; he is standing in limine, on the threshold:
... nunc ipsum (Calderini: ipse M) in limine cerno
soluentem uoces et talia dicta ferentem:
“macte animis opibusque meos imitate labores,
qui rigidas rupes infecundaeque pudenda
naturae deserta domas ...”
(Silv. 3.1.164–8)
Now I see Himself on the threshold, giving tongue and pronouncing the
following words: “Blessed in spirit and wealth, imitator of my labours,
you who tame the unyielding cliffs and the deserts, barren Nature’s dis-
grace ...”The front of the temple is where one would expect to see an inscrip-
ti on, and it would normally record the identity of the person who
erected the building (as with Pompey’s inscription in his theatre, cit.
above; the auditorium was ostensibly the approach to the shrine of
Venus perched on top). In the case of Pollius’ temple of Hercules,
Statius takes the inscription off the pediment, so to speak, converts it
from text to speech by putting it into Hercules’ mouth, and expands
Pollius’ identity into full-blown encomium.^45
Buildings, however, are not the only form of construction cele-
brated in the Silvae. 4.3 celebrates road-building, specifically the
completion of the Via Domitiana from Sinuessa to Puteoli in AD 95.
This meant that travellers between Rome and the Bay of Naples could
now go along the coast virtually all the way, instead of having to
make a detour inland along the Via Appia by way of Capua. As one
might expect, there are some very interesting epigraphic resonances in
this poem. A crucial phrase describes the culmination of Domitian’s
beneficent intentions in this project: gaudens Euboicae domum Sibyl-
44 On mythological spokespersons in Statius, see Coleman 1999; in Propertius,
Coleman 2003.
45 This interpretation supports the substitution of Calderini’s conjecture ipsum for
the manuscript reading ipse that is printed in the Oxford Classical Text by Courtney
1990.