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Epithalamion (i. 2), a much more pleasing composition, the Propempticon, or Farewell-piece (iii. 2), the Description (Ἔκφρασις, i. 3, i. 5, ii. 2, iv. 6), the Genethliacon (ii. 7), a name more commonly given to a poem written for the birthday of a living person, while here the occasion is the anniversary of the birthday of the poet Lucan, who has been dead some years.

More attractive again are such pieces as that on Atedius Melior’s Tree (ii. 3), where Statius’s lightness of touch and fancy appears at its best, or the account of the entertainment given to the people by the Emperor on the Kalends of December (i. 6). The two imitations of Horatian lyric (iv. 5 and 7) are feeble, but the hendecasyllables of iv. 9 are spirited, and in the Lucan ode Statius succeeds in rising above the conventional, and there is real feeling in Calliope’s lament for her favourite poet. The piece which he addresses to his wife Claudia is also marked by sincerity, and so are the two poems on the deaths of members of his own family, his father (v. 3) and his adopted son (v. 5); this latter poem is left unfinished, but it seems to have been planned with the same elaboration that we find in the case of the former. Best known of all the Silvae, probably, is the little sonnet-like poem addressed to the god Sleep (v. 4).

Statius’s chief merit in this class of poetry consists perhaps, in his descriptive power, and to it we owe much of our knowledge of Roman society in the Flavian era. The scenes are varied, and include a state banquet given by the Emperor (iv. 2), a fashionable wedding (i. 2), country-seats of patrons of literature (i. 3, ii. 2), funeral scenes (ii. 1, ii. 6, etc.), the new road along the coast of Campania recently opened