Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/205

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

SILVAE, III. ii. 128—iii. 2

thee a nobler prize, shall bid thee return from the warfare thou hast ended, and I standing again upon this shore shall view the mighty waves and pray for other breezes. How proud then shall I be! How bravely shall I sound my votive lyre! when you lift me to your shoulders and I cling about your stalwart neck, and you, fresh from the ship, fall first upon my breast, and give me all your stored-up converse, and in turn we tell the story of the years between, you of rapid Euphrates and royal Bactra and the sacred wealth of ancient Babylon, and of Zeugma.[1] the way of the Peace of Rome; how sweet is Idume’s luxuriant grove, with what dye costly Tyre glows scarlet, and the purple, twice plunged in Sidonian vats,[2] is stained, where the fruitful sprays first exude the shining spikenard from the bud: while I relate what burial I have granted to the conquered Pelasgians, and rehearse the page that closes the laboured tale of Thebes.[3]

III. A POEM OF CONSOLATION TO CLAUDIUS ETRUSCUS


In this Epicedion Statius has given the chief place to the story of the dead man’s career, more in the manner of a “laudatio”; the opening is also varied, cf. on ii. 6. Claudius Etruscus, the father of the man whom Statius is addressing in this poem, was born a slave at Smyrna, but rapidly rose from post to post in the Imperial household till he finally became Secretary of Finances under Nero; he was made a Knight by Vespasian, and after a brief disgrace under Domitian died at about the age of 90. His wife was of noble birth. Martial wrote a poem on the same occasion (vii. 40).


Duty,[4] most high among gods, whose heaven-favoured deity rarely beholds the guilty earth, come

  1. ↑ Where the Euphrates was usually crossed by the Roman armies. “Zeugma” means a “joining,” “yoking.” “pacis,” because their object was to maintain the “pax Romana.”
  2. ↑ “iterata,” usually known as the “dibapha” (twice dipped), described by Pliny, N.H. xxi. 45.
  3. ↑ Burial of the Pelasgi (= Argives), see Theb. xii. 105; the last line seems to point to some perplexity on Statius’s part as to how he would bring his epic to a close.
  4. ↑ Duty is addressed as though identified with Astraea, as again v. 2. 92, 3. 89; cf. Theb. xi. 457.

167

This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.