1. Mattingly, H. and Sydenham, E.E., The Roman Imperial Coinage Vol. II: Vespasian to Hadrian (London 1926)Google Scholar: Vespasian nos 424–27, 489–91, 595–6, 608, 620, 653, 733, 762, 784; Titus nos 91–93, 128, 141; Domitian no 280. Cf. Carson, R.A.G., Coins of the Roman Empire (London and New York 1990), pl. 7.93Google Scholar.

2. The arch by the temple of Isis and the surviving Arch of Titus are attested in the relief of L. Haterius in the Vatican Museum (line drawing in Reinach, S., Répertoire de reliefs grecs et romains [Paris 1912], iii.286CGoogle Scholar; photographs in Vermeule, C., Jewish Relations with the Art of Greece and Rome [Boston 1981], pi. 13Google Scholar, and Pfanner, M., Der Titusbogen [Mainz 1983], pi. 1.1)Google Scholar. On the existence of three arches celebrating the Flavian triumph over Judaea see Vermeule, 18–20.

3. IO 4 pr. 2–6. In full: cum uero mihi Domitianus Augustus sororis suae nepotum delegauerit curam, non satis honorem iudiciorum caelestium intellegam, nisi ex hoc oneris quoque magnitudinem metiar. quis enim mihi aut mores excolendi sit modus, ut eos non immerito probauerit sanctissimus censor? aut studia, ne fefellisse in iis uidear principem ut in omnibus, ita in eloquentia quoque eminentissimum? quodsi nemo miratur poetas maximos saepe fecisse, ut non solum initiis operum suorum Musas inuocarent, sed prouecti quoque longius, cum ad aliquem grauiorem uenissent locum, repeterent uota et uelut noua precatione uterentur, mihi quoque profecto poterit ignosci, si, quod initio, quo primum hanc materiam incohaui, non feceram, nunc omnes in auxilium deos ipsumque in primis, quo neque praesentius aliud nec studiis magis propitium numen est, inuocem, ut, quantum nobis exspectationis adiecit, tantum ingenii adspiret dexterque ac uolens adsit et me qualem esse credidit facialt. cuius mihi religionis non haec sola ratio, quae maxima est, sed alioqui sic procedit ipsum opus, ut maiora praeteritis ac magis ardua sint, quae ingredior.—‘But since Domitian Augustus has assigned the care of his sister’s grandsons to me, I would not be properly appreciative of such heavenly esteem if it were not by this that I now measure the significance of my undertaking. For what limit should I be setting to my concern for their moral upbringing, when it is from him, the most holy of censors, that truly earned approbation is being sought? or for their studies, so that I should not seem to have failed in this respect a princeps as pre-eminent in eloquence as he is in everything else? Now no-one shows surprise at what the greatest poets have often done, viz. that they not only invoke the Muses at the beginning of their works, but also, when they have progressed a good way into them and have come to some important section, that they repeat their prayers and employ as it were a fresh invocation; so I hope it may be possible for me to be pardoned if I do now what I did not do at the outset when I first engaged with this material, and that is to summon all the gods to my aid and Himself above all (for there is no other divinity more manifest and none who looks more favourably upon education than he), so that he may inspire me with as much talent as he expects to find in me, that he may be at my side with favourable and generous aspect, and that he may make me what he has believed me to be. That is my greatest reason for this act of religious devotion; the other is that my work itself has reached the point where I am now embarking on themes more substantial and difficult than what has gone before.’

4. Suet. Dom. 15.1. The children, renamed T. Flavius Domitianus and T. Flavius Vespasianus, were designated as Domitian’s heirs. What happened to them after the execution of their father and the exile of their mother in 95 is unknown. See Jones, B., The Emperor Domitian (London & New York 1992), 47fCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. See esp. cum pars libri et maior et melior ad maiestatem sacri nominis tui allegata sit, memmerit non nisi religiosa purificatione lustratos accedere ad templa debere (‘since both the greater and better part of the book is bound up with the majesty of your sacred name, it will need to remember not to approach your temple without being cleansed by a religious purification’).

6. 10.1.87–90.

7. Kennedy, G., Quintilian (New York 1969), 110Google Scholar. Cf. Peterson, W., M. Fabi Quintiliani Institutions Oratoriae Liber Decimus (Oxford 1891), xiGoogle Scholar; Cousin, J., Quintilien Institution Oratoire (Paris 1979), vi.319Google Scholar; Clarke, M.L., ‘Quintilian: A Biographical Sketch’, G&R 14 (1967), 24–37Google Scholar, at 35.

8. McDermott and Orentzel take a different view, arguing that the praise is genuine: ‘Quintilian did not need to write [this] comment… He had already thanked Domitian warmly for his appointment as tutor to the emperor’s heirs. There was no need to go further unless he sincerely believed that he had genuine literary ability…’ (McDermott, W.C. and Orentzel, A.E., ‘Quintilian and Domitian’, Athenaeum 57 [1979], 9–26Google Scholar, at 15). Against this one would have to say that (a) the language is far too hyperbolic to be classed as simply an expression of belief in someone’s literary ability and (b) as we shall see all other Latin writers of the early 90’s offer similarly inflated comments on Domitian’s poetic skills, which suggests a perceived need to do so.

9. A case of writer’s block, perhaps?—For Suetonius and Dio this serves as an indication of Domitian’s true character: capricious cruelty, the stylus that would viciously be employed to carve out death sentences in later years (list at Suet. Dom. 10–11). In Suetonius the fly-impaling comes at the outset of Domitian’s reign (inter initia principatus); Dio has the habit develop much earlier. I return to this issue in the penultimate paragraph (p.75 below).

10. quantus in poetica es [sc. Tite]! o magna fecunditas animi: quemadmodum fratrem quoque imitareris excogitasti! (‘How great you are in the art of poetry! O what richness of mind: you worked out a way to be like your brother, too!’, NH pr.5). This does not necessarily mean that Pliny ‘had rated Domitian’s poetry more highly than Titus” (Jones, B.W., Suetonius Domitian [Bristol 1996], 143Google Scholar; similarly Coleman, K.M., ‘The Emperor Domitian and Literature’, ANRW II.32.5 [1986], 3087–3115Google Scholar, at 3089); it may rather suggest that Pliny regarded Domitian as idling away his time in literary pursuits (poetry recitations and the like), the product of which he had neither read nor cared to read, whereas Titus’ poetic endeavours had focused on what for a man of Pliny’s interests was a far more worthwhile topic. And Titus was in any case the Caesar to please; there was little likelihood from Pliny’s perspective that Domitian would ever become emperor, and Vespasian’s designated successor could not be outclassed by his younger brother in any endeavour that might enhance a public image, no matter what the quality of his work.

11. haec fuit de qua quinto consulatu suo Titus Imperator Caesar praeclaro carmine perscripsit (‘this was the one about which the Emperor Titus Caesar wrote in his fifth consulship, and an outstanding poem it is’).

12. E.g. McDermott & Orentzel (n.8 above), 14 n.22. See also Jones (n.10 above), 23; Liberman, G. (ed.), Valerius Flaccus: Argonautiques Chants I–V (Paris 1997), xxivGoogle Scholar.

13. So Lefèvre, E., Das Prooemium der Argonautika des Valerius Flaccus (Mainz 1971), 59fGoogle Scholar.; Strand, J., Notes on Valerius Flaccus’ Argonautica (Göteborg 1972), 13Google Scholar; Coleman (n.10 above), 3091.

14. OLD s.v. 6. This clearly argues that the mss’ pandit is the correct reading rather than the Gryphiana’s pander, the reliefs on the arch are by their very existence ‘making known’ the achievements of Titus. The text given is that of Courtney’s Teubner. On the dating of the Arch of Titus see Pfanner (n.2 above), 91f., where it is argued that the whole project was Domitianic.

15. It is of course conceivable that Valerius’ poem itself dates from the 90’s, as argued by Syme, R., ‘The Argonautica of Valerius Flaccus’, CQ 23 (1929), 129–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As Liberman (n.12 above) observes, ‘La datation du proème des Argonautiques et de l’oeuvre elle-même a fait couler beaucoup d’encre et ne recevra peut-être jamais de solution certaine et définitive’ (xviii). The argument that the lines quoted from the proem to the work refer to the Arch of Titus is not invalidated by a later date (there is in any case considerable argument as to the date of its completion also—cf. Pfanner [n.2 above] loc. cit.). The fact that Domitian’s dissemination of his brother’s achievement is rendered in the present tense (pandit) whereas the building of the Templum Gentis Flauuiae is future (instituet, 1.16) suggests that when the proem reached its final form the Arch was substantially close to completion while the temple was still in its planning stage. The detail (Titus ‘black with dust, spreading firebrands, raging on every tower’) will be poetic embellishment supplied by Valerius himself (its contrast of fire and darkness recalling Homer’s image of Hektor bursting into the Achaian fortification at Il. 12.462f.) rather than representing specific scenes that may have been incorporated into the original version of the Arch of Titus.

16. Dom. 2.2, quoted pp.63f. above. Cf. Dom. 20: numquam tamen aut historiae carminibusue noscendis operant ullam…dedit, ‘However he made no effort to discover anything about history or poetry’, his only reading matter being the commentarii and acta (memoirs and enactments) of Tiberius.

17. For a satiric view of the kind of gathering at which Domitian would have performed, see Persius Sat. 1; for a modern fictional account (involving Domitian) see Davis, Lindsey, Ode to a Banker (London 2000), 5–17Google Scholar. For a more positive setting in which a man of real poetic talent made a real political statement, see Tac. Dial. 2.1 (Maternus’ recitation of his Cato). (Was Domitian there? Was that how the recitation so quickly succeeded in ‘offending the minds of those in power’ [cum offendisse potentium animus diceretur]?) Once again it is the reputation/notoriety that Domitian gained from participation in these events rather than knowledge of specific works on which Pliny will be basing his comparisons between Titus and his brother in the matter of poetic talent (cf n.10 above).

18. Identified as Sex. Iulius Gabinianus, ‘presumably Domitian’s libertus a studiis’, Sullivan, J.P., Martial: The Unexpected Classic (Cambridge 1991), 35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19. Book 5 is the first book in which dominus et deus is employed as a sobriquet of Domitian (on which see Suet. Dom. 13.2). Written in 89 and published in 90, this is used as evidence for the date at which Domitian first insisted on being addressed in this way (Sullivan, n.18 above, 141). While Jones and others are sceptical about Domitian’s insistence (see Jones [n.4 above], 108f., together with his discussion at Jones [n.10 above], 109f., with a list of other ‘dissenters’), there is surely no question as to his acceptance. One may note Martial’s expression of relief in his ‘farewell to blanditiae’ at not having to employ it any more (10.72.8), suggesting that he formerly felt under some kind of compulsion, self-imposed or otherwise—though of course to say that flattery is not expected under the new regime is itself a form of flattery, as in Pliny’s Panegyricus 54. The title in fact is played with in an elaborate and somewhat tongue-in-cheek way by Martial in the opening poems of the book: dominus in poem 2 (line 5), deus at poem 3 (line 6), deus, dominus and dux in separate clauses in the poem we are discussing, dominus in the phrase dominum novem sororum in poem 6 line 17, and finally the full dominus et deus in the opening line of poem 8 (edictum domini deique nostri, ‘the edict of our Master and God’), where the august personage so designated has promulgated a decree on the world-shattering issue of seating arrangements in the theatre. (On the ‘jocular mood’ of this poem cf. J. Garthwaite, ‘Martial, Book 6, on Domitian’s Moral Censorship’, Prudentia 22.1 [1960], 13–22, at 13.) The tone is set in poem 2: quintus cum domino liber iocatur (‘the fifth [book] is freely joking with Master’ [person or word?]), immediately followed by what could be construed as a teasing reference to that blush (quern Germanicus ore non rubenti/coram Cecropia legat puella, ‘which Germanicus with unflushed face may read in the presence of his Cecropian girlfriend’). On the blush see pp.69f. below; the phrase Cecropia…puella verges on the irreverent as a reference to Domitian’s beloved Minerva. For further analysis of the opening poems of Book 5, see Garthwaite, J., ‘Putting a Price on Praise: Martial’s Debate with Domitian in Book 5’, in F. Grewing (ed.), Toto notus in orbe: Perspektiven der Martial-Interpretation (Stuttgart 1998), 157–72Google Scholar.

20. On Martial’s construction of himself as a writer in the Catullus/Marsus/Pedo mould, see Swann, B.W., Martial’s Catullus: The Reception of an Epigrammatic Rival (Hildesheim-Zürich-New York 1994), 42–45Google Scholar; Sullivan (n.18 above), 59f., 93–100.

21. Coleman (n.10 above, 3089) claims that ‘it is not clear whether he [Martial] means that the author is Sextus or Domitian’; caelestia I think makes it fairly clear that it was the latter. Cf. iudiciorum caelestium, ‘heavenly [i.e. Domitianic] esteem’, Quint. IO 4 pr. 2, quoted n.3 above.

22. Most commentators follow Friedländer in accepting that the subject matter of this poem was indeed the civil war of 69. See Friedländer, L., M. Valerii Martialis Epigrammaton Libri (Leipzig 1886)Google Scholar, ad 5.5.7; Bardon, H., Les empéreurs et les lettres latines d’Auguste à Hadrian (Paris 1968), 282Google Scholar; Williams, G., Change and Decline: Roman Literature in the Early Empire (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London 1978), 141Google Scholar. The last-named ascribes to Domitian other poems on the Jewish War (based on what I have already suggested is a misinterpretation of Valerius Flaccus—see p.00 above) and on his own wars against the Chatti (so too Bardon, 282f.), turning him into a full-scale propagandist for the regime (‘His poetry was dynastic in intent: it concerned the deeds of the Flavians’). If this were so, and if Domitian’s talent were such as Quintilian and others maintain it to be, it would seem pointless if not downright presumptuous for others to offer to cover the same ground in the way that Statius does (Theb. 1.17–24 and 32f., Silu. 4.4.94–96, Ach. 1.18f.). Newman, J.K.(Roman Catullus and the Modification of the Alexandrian Sensibility [Hildesheim 1990], 79n.11)Google Scholar assumes that the poem was a Gigantomachy (‘Domitian is flatteringly alleged to have tackled successfully a theme normally shunned by the sympotic and Alexandrian poet, that of the Gigantomachy’), but this seems based on a mistranslation of Martial’s poem and a misinterpretation of Stat. Silu. 5.3.195–97, where the conflict on the Capitol is likened to the battle between gods and giants.

23. On the nature of Domitian’s participation in these events, see pp.68f. below.

24. nec te terruerint Tarpei culminis ignes,/sacrilegas inter flammas seruabere terris (‘and the fires of the Tarpeian summit will not have terrified you; you will be saved for the earth among the sacrilegious flames’). This may equally well refer to Domitian’s sculptured representations of his adventures and Jupiter’s role in them: see next paragraph.

25. It may be unfair to disparage Domitian’s actions to the extent that Tacitus and Suetonius do; as Southern points out, ‘the danger was vividly real… For two days Domitian could not be sure of his fate’, and the brutal murder of Sabinus showed what might have happened to Domitian himself. See Southern, P., Domitian: Tragic Tyrant (Bloomington and Indianapolis 1997), 18Google Scholar. Consciousness of his narrow escape remained with Domitian for the rest of his life. For a more ‘Domitian-friendly’ account see Jones (n.2 above), 14–18. But we are not here concerned with unearthing the historical truth about what happened on the Capitol between the 19th and 21st December 69 CE; the issue is rather the way these events are represented during the Flavian period and the existence or otherwise of an epic by Domitian on the subject.

26. Southern (n.25 above), 18f.

27. There is of course good Neronian precedent for this; Suet. Nero 38.2. It is surely significant that where Nero’s poetry is concerned both Suetonius and Tacitus have a text on which they can offer comment (Suet. Nero 52, Tac. Ann. 14.16), whereas for Domitian they have no such thing.

28. McDermott and Orentzel take this as genuine praise, as they also do with Quintilian (cf. n.8 above): ‘Silius had already given praise to the emperor’s generalship, thus he could diplomatically avoid mention of Domitian’s literary ability unless he sincerely believed in the emperor’s talent’ (McDermott, W.C. and Orentzel, A.E., ‘Silius Italicus and Domitian’, AJP 98 [1977], 24–34Google Scholar, at 29). In the climate of the early 90’s such ‘diplomatic avoidance’ might not have been thought wise. It is also worth noting that this praise of Domitian forms part of the climax of a prophecy uttered by Jupiter in response to a complaint from Venus, and is thus clearly alluding to the prophecy of Jupiter uttered in identical circumstances at Aeneid 1.257–96, whose climax is a vision of Julius Caesar and Augustus. Both are emphatically contained within quotation marks, both are marked by hyperbolic imagery, neither should be taken automatically as accurately representing the poet’s attitude or beliefs.

29. The interpretation of the Achilleid that follows owes much to ideas developed in Benker, Margit, Achill und Domitian: Herrscherkritik in der Achilleis der Statius, Diss. Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (Erlangen-Nürnberg 1987)Google Scholar. According to Benker, Statius was driven to write this anti-Domitianic poem through pique at his failure to win a prize at the Capitoline Games of 94; Domitian became aware of it and suppressed the work, which accounts for its ‘unfinished’ state (though on this see pp.71f. and n.37 below). As both her reviewers point out (Franchet d’Espèrey, S., REL 65 [1987], 335–36Google Scholar; Dewar, M., CR 38 [1988], 252–53Google Scholar), some of the correspondences she draws between Domitian and Statius’ Achilles are rather far-fetched; but the central one, between Domitian’s (from a traditional Roman perspective) decidedly unheroic conduct in the Capitoline War and Achilles being secreted on Scyros disguised as a woman I find very convincing. Dewar’s assertion that a person of Statius’ rank and dependence on patronage would not behave in this way does not seem a convincing counter-argument (see Ahl, F.M., ‘The Rider and the Horse: Politics and Power in Roman Poetry from Horace to Statius’, ANRW 11.32.1 [1984], 40–110Google Scholar, at 85f.). There is growing evidence that Statius’ relationship with Domitian was always problematic; the Thebaid canvasses touchy contemporary themes (fraternal conflict over a succession, the use and abuse of power, on which see esp. Dominik, W., ‘Monarchal Power and Imperial Politics in Statius’ Thebaid’, Ramus 18 [1989], 74–97)Google Scholar; Ahl (op. cit. 91–102) shows how even a poem that manifests itself as blatantly eulogistic is capable of an alternative reading; and John Garthwaite similarly analyses another such poem in an appended article (‘Statius, Silvae 3.4: On the Fate of Earinus’, ANRW 11.32.1 [1984], 111–24Google Scholar). Deteriorating relations between poet and court may well lie behind Statius’ decision to retire to Naples; they may also account for his failure to win the big prize. Needless to say I am not convinced by Ariò’s argument that there was an improvement in relations in 94–95, nor that the Achilleid was written to support the regime’s militaristic policies (Aricò, G., ‘L’ ‘Achilleide’ di Stazio: tradizione letteraria e invenzione narrativa’, ANRW II.32.5 [1986], 2926–64Google Scholar, at 2927f. This is reading into magnusque tibi praeludit Achilles (1.19—see p.71 below) a program for the poem that Statius didn ’t write.

30. Plin. loc. cit.; also Tac. Agr. 45.3, Hist. 4.40, Suet. Dom. 18.1. Cf. Mart. 5.2.7 with n.19 above.

31. The Diana comparison goes back to Horn. Od. 6.102–09 via Virg. Aen. 1.498–504; see Dilke, O.A.W., Statius: Achilleid (Cambridge 1954), 105Google Scholarad loc.

32. Minerva is not a goddess frequently used as a paradigm of feminine beauty, as this somewhat humorous aside serves to emphasise. In Lucr. DRN 4.1161 and Ov. AA 2.659, employing a comparison with Minerva is seen as the last resort of the besotted lover, one of the terms of endearment used to gloss over (or make an asset out of) physical imperfections. At Prop. 2.2.7, however, she comes into the lover’s mind as he fantasises about Cynthia, Gorgon’s head and all. Rosati, G., ‘L’Achilleide di Stazio, un’ epica dell’ ambiguità’, Maia 44 (1992), 233–66Google Scholar, at 240, suggests that the comparison is used here to indicate some sexual ambiguity about Achilles’ infatuation with Deidamia, by endowing her with a ‘misto di grazia e di forza—una bellezza, potremmo dire, ermafrodita’. Certainly a girl named Deidamia (‘tamer of enemies’) could well be thought of as a human counterpart of the warrior goddess. It seems to me though that the main point is to draw attention to the unusualness of the comparison, and so make us mink of that other devotee of Minerva. See next note.

33. Méheust, J., Stace Achilléide (Paris 1971), 86Google Scholar, in a note on this passage remarks ‘il n’est pas inutile de remarquer que l’empereur Domitien honorait Minerve…’, but does not speculate on any specific connection there might be between this fact and the role allotted to the goddess at this point in the poem.

34. Statius employs a significant simile at this point; Achilles is compared to a lion’s cub which seemed to have been tamed and trained, but which when grown and confronted with weapons turns first of all against his trainer: eiurata fides domitorque inimicus: in illum/prima fames, timidoque pudet seruisse magistro (‘He renounces his allegiance and his tamer becomes his enemy; his primal hunger is directed at him, and he is ashamed to have been slave to a cowardly master’, 862f.). The allusion is not in fact to gladiatorial confrontations with wild animals (though such would probably cross a Roman reader’s mind; cf Dilke [n.3] above] ad loc.) but as we have seen with other similes it has a primarily literary reference, here to the famous lion’s cub simile of Aesch. Ag. 716–37 where the grown lion likewise turns on those who raised it. Importing the connotations of that simile gives a much more sinister ring to Statius’ narrative, suggesting that a destructive and evil force is to be unleashed on the world.

35. References in n.30 above.

36. Statius himself, in fact: Silu. 4.2.65–67. Here Statius expressly links (talis…qualis) his vomitorious Homeric/Virgilian description of Domitian’s feast with that earlier piece of poetic obsequiousness that won him the Alban prize, thus relegating that earlier work to the same category of meaninglessness.—And of course there is that other great unfinished work, the ‘luminous’ De Bello Germanico…now featuring solely as footnote to Juvenal’s ‘true story’ (res uera agitur, Sat. 4.35) of the turbot debate, a poem which offers its own satiric retrospective on imperial reading of writers serving up their versions of that fisherman’s basket: nihil est quod credere de selnon possit cum laudatur dis aequo potestas (‘there’s nothing that power equal to the gods is incapable of believing about itself when it is praised’, 4.70f.).

37. The overt implication is of course as indicated by Stephen Hinds: ‘Thebaid-Achilleid-Domitianic epic as Statius’ envisaged career path’ (Hinds, S., Allusion and Intertext: Dynamics of Appropriation in Roman Poetry [Cambridge 1998], 97 n.89Google Scholar). But one should not ignore the ‘ludic’ element of praeludit, which is very much to the fore on the other occasion he uses the word in the preface to Silu. 1 (on which see Ahl [n.29 above], 87). Cf. Hinds’s later observation (op. cit. 136): ‘Those few critics who have paused to consider [the Achilleid] have been struck above all by dominant qualities of playfulness and whimsy.’

38. One is again reminded of the dangers of assuming that a work that looks unfinished is unfinished; cf. the salutary and often-quoted admonition of Jamie Masters: ‘The best evidence for the intended ending of a poem is the place where it does, in fact, end’ (Masters, J., Poetry and Civil War in Lucan’s ‘Bellum Civile’ [Cambridge 1992], 216Google Scholar). The enigmatic closing sentence of the Achilleid, scit cetera mater, ‘mother knows the rest’ (2.167) could be interpreted as meaning ‘I’ve gone as far as I ever intended to go with this story; if you want to know the rest, apply to Thetis—after all, she’s a goddess, and she is aware (and as a mother only too aware) of what the future holds for Achilles.’ For a similarly ‘pregnant’ closure to a similarly ‘foreshortened’ epic, see the last line of Eumolpus’ poem on the Civil War (Petr. Sat. 124), where the entire history of the war is subsumed in the words factum est in terns quicquid Discordia iussit (‘and everything Discord ordered came to pass on earth’, 295).

39. Méheust (n.33 above, 67) notes the implication of parumper but dismisses it: ‘Quant à la brièveté de 1’ Achilléide projetée, brièveté que semble annoncer parumper, elle est toute relative, puisqu’ il faudra déjà plus de mille vers pour qu’ Achille prenne la route de Troie.’ This may be the very point: he never gets there. The programmatic announcement at the beginning, that the narrator will fill the gaps left by Homer and lead his hero through the whole tale of Troy (tota iuuenem deducere Troia, 1.7) will then become a smokescreen, part of the disguise that makes the work look like the fragment of a Thebaid-lengih epic. The primis metis (‘first turning posts’) of Silu. 4.7.23 are as far as it was ever going to get.

40. See Silu. 5.3.199–202, where it is described as a lament (‘you [sc. Statius senior] sang a consolation for the obliterated temples and wept for the captured thunderbolts’). Hardie and Coleman argue that Statius senior was in fact Domitian’s tutor; if so, Domitian could hardly have avoided reading it. See Hardie, A., Statius and the Silvae: Poets, Patrons and Epideixis in the Graeco-Roman World (Liverpool 1983), 11Google Scholar; Coleman (n.10 above), 3092f.

41. That the ‘Caesar’ here is Vespasian is rightly argued by Hardie (n.40 above), 12 and 204n.78. If Tacitus is right in saying that it was the Flavians who started the fire (cf. p.68 above), then it would be they who ‘assumed a Gallic frenzy’ (Senonum furias…sumpsere, 188), and the Latiae cohortes (‘Latin cohorts’) who are the subject of sumpsere would be the same as the Latii proceres of 203. A touchy subject for a poet to tackle while the ashes were still hot (uix requies flammae necdum rogus die deorum/siderat, ‘scarcely had the flames quietened down, nor yet had that pyre of the gods subsided…’, 199f.).

42. Commentators rightly stress the allusivity of the Achilleid; see for example Hinds (n.37 above), 135–42; Taisne, A.-M., L’Esthétique de Stace: la peinture des correspondances (Paris 1994), 23–25Google Scholar, 32–34, 61–63, 77–81, 168f.; Rosati (n.32 above) passim; Mélieust (n.33 above), xxi–xxxix. Ironic that the one work to which it yearns principally to allude, the great work of the emperor, is hidden away in the library, definitely stamped ‘not for loan’.

43. ‘It is to be noticed that it only appears in the fifth book of the Silvae, though his father had died about fifteen years previously. Possibly the last book was posthumous…its last poem is an unfinished one.’ Mozley, J.H., Statius (Cambridge MA and London 1928), i.303Google Scholar. (That unfinished poem again…) That Siluae 5 was published posthumously is accepted as a ‘fact’ by Garthwaite, J., ‘Statius’ Retirement from Rome: Silvae 3.5’, Antichthon 23 (1989), 81–91Google Scholar, at 82n,10, but I do not regard this as at all self-evident. It seems an odd way to honour one’s dead father: almost as odd as writing the great epic about the Capitoline War and burying it in the Palace Library… (For various theories on the composition of this poem, see n.35 of Rebecca Nagel’s article above.)

44. First mentioned at Silu. 3.5.31–33 (tu cum Capitolia nostrae/infitiata lyrae, saeuum ingratumque dolebas/mecum uicta louem, ‘You [sc. wife], when the Capitol rejected my lyre, felt my defeat as your own and lamented the cruelty and ingratitude of Jove’. That Jove here = Domitian is persuasively argued by Garthwaite (n.43 above), 88–90.

45. See n.29 above. Garthwaite’s thesis is that it led to Statius’ departure from Rome (n.43 above, 84); the two are not of course incompatible.

46. See Leigh, M., Lucan: Spectacle and Engagement (Oxford 1997), 23–26Google Scholar.

47. For the ‘standard’ interpretation see Susan Braund, H., Roman Verse Satire (Oxford 1992), 8fGoogle Scholar. Satire as a genre (= verse satire) is a purely Roman invention, and has nothing to do with the Greeks: ‘Quintilian is…claiming originality—and, it simply follows, superiority—for the Romans in the genre of Roman satire.’ Same or similar observations in Dominik, W.J. and Wehrle, W.T., Roman Verse Satire: Lucilius to Juvenal (Wauconda 1999)Google Scholar, 1 and n. 1; Braund, S.M., The Roman Satirists and their Masks (Bristol 1996), x–xiGoogle Scholar; Coffey, M., Roman Satire² (Bristol 1989), 3fGoogle Scholar.

48. Certainly Quintilian appears to be pushing the generic barrow in his survey, first identifying genre and then reviewing the principal practitioners. But there is surely a hint of a wider agenda here. The ‘Romanness’ of satura is not just demonstrated by baldly declaring that there were no Greek satirists (which incidentally contradicts Horace’s equally bald declaration that ‘all Lucilius derives from them [sc. the Athenian old comedians]’ (hinc omnis Lucilius pendet, Serm. 1.6), but by showing that the satiric sensibility pervades the best of Roman literature. If you define generically, there is the problem of who is in and who out: Ennius, Lucilius, Horace, Persius, Juvenal are pretty universally regarded as ‘in’ (though Quintilian does not include Ennius), but what about Martial, Lucretius, Plautus, Petronius, Seneca, Sallust, Tacitus…? Or indeed Quintilian? As Juvenal famously remarks, when you observe what some people get away with in a corrupt political system it’s hard not to write satire (difficile est saturam non scribere, Juv. Sat. 1.30).

49. On Quintilianic emphasis see Winkler, M., ‘Alogia and emphasis in Juvenal’s Fourth Satire’, Ramus 24 (1995), 59–81Google Scholar, at 65–67; on figured discourse (schema) more generally, Ahl (n.29 above), 82–84, and ‘The Art of Safe Criticism in Greece and Rome’, AJP 105 (1984), 174–208Google Scholar, at 187–97; Bartsch, S., Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian (Cambridge MA 1994), 67 and 93–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50. Kennedy is thus right to see a connection between the remarks on Lucan and the praise of Domitian’s poetic talent, but gets it back-to-front: ‘The praise of Domitian certainly overshadows the remarks about Lucan which immediately preceded, if they can be imagined to be in any way dangerous’ (Kennedy n.7 above, 110). It is the remarks about Lucan that cast a shadow over the praise of Domitian, not vice versa.

51. It is no argument to object that Quintilian was too dependent on imperial patronage or too much a supporter of Flavian policy to publish material disapproving of Domitian, as for example Winterbottom, M., ‘Quintilian and the Vir Bonus’, JRS 54 (1964), 90–97Google Scholar, at 96: ‘Quintilian was a Flavian office-holder, appointed by Vespasian, and, under Domitian, tutor for a while of royal children. Along with kind words about Domitian’s poetic prowess had to go a discreet silence about the less agreeable aspects of Flavian power.’ Certainly one had to be discreet; but one did not have to be silent. Quintilian as a professor of rhetoric was better placed than most to use rhetorical figure to make a point; and as one with a clear idea of the moral responsibility that goes with the exercise of rhetorical skill, an issue to which the bulk of IO 12 is dedicated, he, like Juvenal, would find it hard not to express somehow to the discerning reader his distaste at being required to prostitute his art in the service of empty flattery. It is quite inappropriate to accuse him of ‘the most unmanly vice of hypocrisy’ (McDermott and Orentzel [n.8 above], 14) for including these hyperbolic passages of praise to Domitian in Books 4 and 10; it was the only safe way to make his point. As Ahl (n.49 above, 207) rightly remarks, ‘Quintilian’s cardinal rule is that one of the levels of meaning must appear complimentary.’

52. See e.g. Boyle, A.J., The Eclogues of Virgil (Melbourne 1976), 130Google Scholar.

53. Serv. ad Eel. 8.6; cf. Coleman, R. (ed.), Vergil: Eclogues (Cambridge 1977), 228Google Scholar.

54. Garthwaite, J., ‘The Panegyrics of Domitian in Martial Book 9’, Ramus 22 (1993), 78–102Google Scholar; cf. also Garthwaite (n.19 above) for a similar analysis of Book 6.

55. The first poem of Book 8 continues the theme of the preface (cf. n.5 above) more intrigu–ingly than might at first appear: nuda recede Venus; non est tuus iste libellus:/tu mihi, tu Pallas Caesariana, ueni (‘withdraw, naked Venus; this little book is not yours: you come to me, you, Caesar’s Minerva’, 8.1.3f). No place here for the Capitoline Venus, ancestress of the Julian family, avatar of the love-Muse that Virgil called upon to inspire the second half of the Aeneid (Aen. 7.37, pace Servius ad loc); this Caesar’s goddess is the one I summon to inspire my verse. (Note that she is referred to here in a very formal way, as opposed to the Cecropia…puella of 5.2.8 [cf. n.]9 above].) Invoking Minerva to inspire work in a genre that has much more to do with nuda Venus is as incongruous as invoking Erato to inspire an epic poem where love is conspicuously absent (at least as far as its protagonist is concerned); the strange consequences attending upon rulers’ choices of tutelary deities should not be lost on the thinking reader.

56. I.e. as referring to some ‘paired’ (duobus, 7) part of the anatomy (breasts? buttocks? her lover’s [cf. 6.90] testicles?) which Annaeus Serenus’ hand was notorious for fondling (eheu, auam bene nunc, Papiriane,/Annaei faceret manus Sereni, ‘ah, Papirianus, what a great job Annaeus Serenus’ hand could do now!’, 10f.; for other examples of hands/fingers used for sexual groping see 6.23.3; 7.58.4; 10.55; 11.22.4; 11.29.1, 8; 11.70.6; 11.104.15f). A nudge-and-wink reference like this is far more likely to convey some sexual innuendo against the man who pretended to be Acte’s lover (Tac. Ann. 13.13) than some incident of theft (contra Shackleton Bailey ad loc). Cf. 12.49, where a double meaning of uniones would add considerable zest to the final line and where the play on the polarity between ‘one’ (uni-) and ‘two’ is even more pronounced.

57. A couple of slightly risqué references to homosexual love in poems 44 and 63 are the only possible exceptions—mild compared to poems found in other books.

58. Who didn’t read any poetry anyway; cf. n.16 above. As Ahl points out (n.49 above, 207), it was politicians rather than poets or professors of rhetoric that Domitian was mainly concerned about. The case of Helvidius Priscus, executed according to Suetonius because he wrote a Paris and Oenone which was thought to criticise Domitian’s divorce of Domitia, does not prove anything about Domitian’s perspicuity as a reader. Helvidius’ family connections made him already a target of suspicion, and the literary pretext under which he was charged would have derived from evidence provided by an informer rather than a reaction by Domitian himself.

59. This is the only poem in which the ‘Auguste’ address is employed twice. It is also used at 80.7, where another aspect of the original Augustus is alluded to, his restoration of old customs at the same time as introducing new ones (RGDA 8).

60. It will be obvious from this comment that I am in substantial agreement with A.J. Boyle’s analysis of the Aeneid, first published in this journal (‘The Meaning of the Aeneid: A Critical Enquiry’, Ramus 1 [1972], 63–90 and 113–51Google Scholar), and expanded in The Chaonian Dove: Studies in the Eclogues, Georgia and Aeneid of Virgil (Leiden 1986), 85–176Google Scholar.

61. How thoroughly may be seen from the consular fasti for the years 70–79 CE. For seven of those ten years (70, 72, 74–77 and 79) the consuls were Vespasian and Titus; in 71 Vespasian–s colleague was Nerva. Domitian’s only full (as opposed to suffect) consulship was in 73, one of the two years in which Vespasian decided to allow others to take the role (the other was 78). Thus during Vespasian’s reign Domitian never shared the consulship with either his father or his brother. Cf. Suet. Dom. 2.1.

62. Domitian was allowed to take part in the triumph riding a white horse, conspicuously inferior to the quadrigae of Vespasian and Titus. At the top of the arch through which the procession is depicted as carrying the spoils from Jerusalem in the interior panel of the Arch of Titus, Domitian is shown riding this horse next to a goddess (Victory?); Titus and Vespasian are nowhere to be seen behind the two sets of four horses’ heads (Pfanner [n.2 above], pl.56.1, 4 and 5). Was this Domitian’s revenge?

63. And all those impaled flies would have names…and they would not all have been on the Vitellian side, either.

64. This essay is an extensively revised version of a paper first given at the Pacific Rim Roman Literature Seminar held at Temple University’s Rome Campus in June 1999. I would like to thank all those who heard it on that and subsequent occasions for their comments (particularly Peter Davis). Special thanks to Martha Davis of Temple University for organising this very stimulating event. Special thanks also to John Henderson for reading the penultimate revision and furnishing perceptive insights towards its ultima manus.