Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-swr86 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T02:18:18.230Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Dining with the emperor: Silvae 4.2

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

Carole E. Newlands
Carole E. Newlands
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Get access

Summary

‘A poet cannot know his theme until the emperor orders it. Until then he should think of nothing but the sublime classics of the past. But I knew I would be commanded to celebrate a great act and the greatest act of our age is the building of the new palace … How many captives died miserably quarrying its stone? … Yet this building which barbarians think a long act of intricately planned cruelty has given the empire this calm and solemn heart where honoured guests and servants can command peace and prosperity till the end of time.’

Alasdair Gray, Five Letters from an Eastern Empire

Book 4, published as a separate collection of Silvae in ad 95, marks a new departure for Statius in that it begins with a sequence of three poems addressed to Domitian. The emperor's assumption of his seventeenth consulship on 1 January ad 95, provides the occasion for Silv. 4. 1. As is characteristic of Statius' poems of imperial praise, the poet's voice is occluded by that of Janus who speaks the encomium of the emperor from his new temple in Domitian's Forum Transitorium, the Temple of Janus Quadrifrons. Flanked on one side by Vespasian's Temple of Peace, and on the other by the Forum of Augustus and the Temple of Mars Ultor, the new forum of Domitian was symbolically linked with both peace and war.

Type
Chapter
Information
Statius' Silvae and the Poetics of Empire , pp. 260 - 283
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×