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to avoid the hard glitter of Latin, so suitable to the clear-cut phrase of Horace or the snap and polish of Ovid or Martial, and a longing for occasional half-tones, for lack of precision. Possibly it is due to Virgilian influence, for part of Virgil’s genius consists in being able to give a soft, mysterious effect without any sense of unnaturalness. Statius aims at a like effect, but fails to avoid unnaturalness.

(VII.) Psychologically, he is not conspicuous for remarkable insight; it may be said, however, in his defence that the epic does not demand refinement in character drawing, which is rather the business of the drama. In the Thebaid, as, indeed, in the Aeneid, the treatment of character is broad: Amphiaraus the seer, Eteocles the fierce tyrant, Capaneus the scorner of the gods, Hippomedon the stalwart warrior, Parthenopaeus the gallant youth, are all true to type;^[1] more carefully drawn are Adrastus and his son-in-law Polynices; the former is depicted as an elderly monarch, grave, kindly, diplomatic, and perhaps somewhat lacking in decision, while the latter is shown as not altogether easy in mind, even diffident, about the undertaking, and ready to lapse into utter despair and to contemplate suicide when things go badly; at the same time he is not quite ingenuous (see iii. 381–2), and on comparing him with his brother one feels there is not much to choose. Tydeus is vigorously drawn, especially in the episode of the embassy; he becomes the mere warrior in Bk. X., and his memory is stained by the inhuman gnawing of his enemy’s skull with which the book, and his career, closes.