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SILVAE, I. ii. 137–159

favourest, my son, my chiefest power, shall have his will, though many a time she refuse with tears to bear the yoke of a second wedlock. She herself, I have noticed, is already yielding, and in her turn grows warm toward her lover.” With these words she raised her starry limbs, and passing the proud threshold of her chamber called to the rein her Amyclaean doves. Love harnesses them, and seated on the jewelled car bears his mother rejoicing through the clouds. Soon appears the Ilian citadel of Tiber: a lofty mansion spreads wide its shining halls, and the swans exulting beat their wings on its bright portals. Worthy of the goddess was that abode, nor mean after the radiant stars. Here is marble of Libya and Phrygia, and the hard green Laconian rock[1]; here the winding pattern of the onyx, and the vein that matches the deep sea’s hue, and the brilliant stone that is envied by Oebalian[2] purple and the mixer of the Tyrian cauldron. The ceilings rest poised on columns innumerable; the beams glitter in lavish decking of Dalmatian ore.[3] Coolness down-streaming from ancestral trees shuts out the rays of the sun, translucent fountains play in basins of marble; nor does Nature keep her wonted order: here Sirius is cool, midwinter warm, and the house sways the altered seasons to its pleasure.

Kindly Venus rejoiced to see the house of her queenly fosterling, no less than if from the deep sea she were drawing nigh to Paphos or her Idalian

  1. ↑ Other descriptions of marble will be found in Silvae, i. 5. 34, ii. 2. 85, iv. 2. 26. In each passage Libyan and Phrygian are mentioned, probably a kind of giallo antico and pavonazzetto respectively. Marble of Carystos also, if “concolor alto vena mari” and “glaucae certantia Doridi saxa” are to be so explained. This is perhaps cipollino verde ondato. The green Laconian (here, i. 5. 40 and ii. 2. 90) is verde antico. “Flexus onyx” is either “onyx alabastrites” or perhaps a kind of agate. ll. 150–1 refer to porphyry: other marbles mentioned by Statius are those of Thasos, Chios, and Syene, and the stone called ophites (=serpentine).
  2. ↑ i.e., Spartan, Laconian, cf. “purpuras Laconicas,” Hor. C. ii. 18. 7.
  3. ↑ i.e., gold, mined there since Augustus; cf. iii. 3. 90.

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