INTRODUCTION

Publius Papinius Statius was born at Naples, probably about A.D. 40. His father was a native of Velia on the Lucanian coast, but had moved to Naples, where as “grammaticus” he conducted a school to which pupils came from all parts of Italy. Here he taught literature, which in the secondary school of the time meant poetry, with exposition of grammar, style, and antiquities; he also instructed his pupils in augury and the various rites of the Roman state religion. He was himself a poet, and had won prizes in the Grecian contests, at Delphi, Nemea, and the Isthmus; he had written a poem on the civil war of A.D. 69, and was planning another on the eruption of Vesuvius in 79, when he died. He was buried on an estate that he possessed near Alba.

The younger Statius owed to his father’s personal care and instruction all his education and poetical training, a debt which he acknowledges in terms of the warmest gratitude; he soon gained fame as a poet himself, and won prizes at the local competitions in Naples, held at the festival of the Augustalia. Probably after his father’s death he left Naples and

See references to his senium in Silv. iii. 5. 13, 24, iv. 4. 70, v. 2. 158; the date also suits his father’s lifetime. Other information will be found for the most part in Silv. v. 3, and iii. 5.