22 Facts About Statius

Publius Papinius Statius was a Greco-Roman poet of the 1st century CE.

Statius's surviving Latin poetry includes an epic in twelve books, the Thebaid; a collection of occasional poetry, the Silvae; and an unfinished epic, the Achilleid.

Statius is known for his appearance as a guide in the Purgatory section of Dante's epic poem, the Divine Comedy.

Information about Statius' life is almost entirely drawn from his Silvae and a mention by the satirist Juvenal.

Statius was born to a family of Greek-Campanian origin; his Roman cognomen suggests that at some time an ancestor of his was freed and adopted the name of his former master, although neither Statius nor his father were slaves.

From Pliny the Younger's Letters, it has recently been deduced that Statius wrote under the pseudonym of Propertius.

Statius was born c 45 CE and he was raised in the Greek cultural milieu of the Bay of Naples, and his Greek literary education lends a sophisticated veneer to his ornamental verse.

Statius is thought to have moved to Rome c 90 after his father's death where he published his acclaimed epic poem the Thebaid c 92.

Statius produced the first three books of occasional poetry, his Silvae, which were published in 93, which sketch his patrons and acquaintances of this period and mention his attendance at one of Domitian's Saturnalia banquets.

Statius competed in the great Capitoline competition, although it is not known in what year, although 94 has been suggested.

Statius failed to win the coveted prize, a loss he took very hard.

Statius seems to have taken an interest in the marriage and career of his stepdaughter and he took a young slave boy under his wing, as he was childless, who died c 95.

Statius was able to compose in hexameter, hendecasyllable, Alcaic, and Sapphic meters, to produce deeply researched and highly refined epic and polished impromptu pieces, and to treat a variety of themes with the dazzling rhetorical and poetic skill that inspired the support of his patrons and the emperor.

Statius' flattery of these elites has been interpreted in two ways by scholars; some maintain that the collection is highly subversive and is a subtle criticism of Domitian and the Roman aristocracy.

Statius' poetry was very popular in his lifetime, although he was not without his critics who apparently had problems with his ex tempore style.

Statius' redemption is heard in Purgatorio 20, when the mountain of Purgatory trembles and the penitent souls cry out the hymn "Gloria in excelsis Deo".

Statius joins Dante and Virgil, as indicated in Purgatorio 21.

Statius ascends Mount Purgatory with Dante and Virgil, and he stays with Dante in the Earthly Paradise at the mountain's summit, after Virgil has returned to Limbo.

In particular, Statius was saved from the vice of prodigality by reading Virgil's condemnation of this particular vice in a passage of the Aeneid, and that he found reason for converting to Christianity while reading a passage from Virgil's Eclogues.

For example, Statius asks Virgil where the poets Terence, Caecilius, Plautus and Lucius Varius are.

However, though Statius's conversion to Christianity is a key positive element in the Divine Comedy, it is a "negative exemplum" to Dante.

However, Statius' Capaneus is represented as a heroic character, while in the Comedy, his only attributes are physical strength and his failure to accept God's divine power.