Page:Statius (Mozley 1928) v1.djvu/249

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SILVAE, IV. i. 40—ii. 10

permit the triumphs.[1] Bactra and Babylon are still to be curbed with new tribute, not yet have Indian laurels been laid in the lap of Jove; not yet do the Arabs and Seres make petition, not yet hath the year its full tale of honour: ten months still yearn for thee to name them.”[2]

So Janus ended, and gladly withdrew into his closed portals. Then all the gods flung wide their temples, and gave signs in the glad vault of heaven, and Jupiter vouchsafed thee, O mighty leader, a perpetual youth and his own years.

II. A POEM OF THANKSGIVING TO THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS GERMANICUS DOMITIANUS


Statius offers his thanks to the Emperor for the great banquet given to Senators and Knights in his new palace, to which the poet had been invited.


He who brought great Aeneas to the Laurentian fields extols the royal banquet of Sidonian Elissa, and he who ended Ulysses’ story with his return after long seafaring portrays in lasting verse the supper of Alcinous:[3] but I, on whom now for the first time Caesar has bestowed the unwonted rapture of a feast divine, and granted me to ascend to the table of my prince, what skill have I to sing my blessings, what power to express my thankfulness? Not even if Smyrna[4] and Mantua both were to bind their laurels on my exultant head, could I make worthy utterance. Methinks I recline with Jove in mid-heaven, and take

  1. ↑ Statius elsewhere flatters Domitian for abstaining from triumphs that he might have celebrated, cf. iv. 3. 159.
  2. ↑ After his triumph at the end of 83 Domitian had adopted the title of Germanicus, and later on, probably in 86, had the months September and October called Germanicus and Domitianus (Suet. Dom. 13).
  3. ↑ See Virgil, Aen. i. 696; Homer, Odyss. viii. 57.
  4. ↑ One of the reputed birthplaces of Homer.

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