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of humanity, lines that breathe the spirit of a purer religion than any known to the ancient world, and may well have given rise to Dante’s belief that Statius was a Christian.

We may now consider briefly some further characteristics of the Thebaid. (I.) Statius revels in description: in the first book we have the storm that Polynices encounters on his way to Argos, in Bk. II. the exciting narrative of the ambush set for Tydeus on his return from Thebes, in Bk. III. the auspice-taking, in Bk. IV. the necromancy. The games in Bk. VI. are well done, Statius, no doubt, owing several details to his own close observation in the Roman Circus, as, for example, in the boxing and wrestling matches and the discus-throwing. In Bks. VII. and X. we have two set pieces, the abode of Mars and of Sleep respectively. Battle-pieces since Homer have, as a rule, been failures, in painting as well as in poetry; those of the Silver Latin poets suggest the large canvases of third-rate Italian painters, depicting, for example, the capture of Constantinople by the Latins for the adornment of a ducal palace; the same grim detail, the same hectic fury marks the battle-scenes of Statius. It is in description that his love of hyperbole becomes most manifest: the mountain in ii. 32 sq. is so high that the stars rest upon it, the serpent in v. 550 covers several acres, the Centaur plunging down from the mountain dams a whole river with his bulk, iv. 144, etc.

(II.) Passages of this kind, and also similes, are in many cases borrowed from previous poets, Virgil, Ovid, or Lucan. Statius in borrowing often adds details to fill out the picture, or elaborates the