Statius

Publius Papinius Statius (c. 45 – c. 96) was a Roman poet of the Silver Age of Latin literature.

Quotes

Thebaid

Main article: Thebaid

Sors aequa merentes
respicit.
- A just fortune awaits the deserving.
- Book I, line 661 (tr. C. T. Ramage)
- Compare:
  - Fortuna meliores sequitur.
    - Fortune follows the deserving.
      - Sallust, Hist. 1.77.21

O caeca nocentum
consilia! o semper timidum scelus!
- Blind counsels of the wicked! Crime cowardly ever!
- Book II, line 489

Pessimus in dubiis augur, timor.
- Fear, in times of doubt the worst of prophets.
- Book III, line 6

Quid crastina volveret aetas
scire nefas homini.
- It was forbidden to man to know what to-morrow's day would bring.
- Book III, line 562 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Primus in orbe deos fecit timor.
- Fear first made gods in the world.
- Book III, line 661
- Note: These words also appear in a fragmentary poem attributed to Petronius (Fragm. 22. 1)

Dulce loqui miseris veteresque reducere questus.
- Pleasant is it to the unhappy to speak, and to recall the sorrows of old time.
- Book V, line 48 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Pro fors et caeca futuri
mens hominum!
- So strange is Chance, so blind the purposes of men!
- Book V, line 718 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Pulchrum vitam donare minori.
- 'Tis noble to spare the vanquished.
- Book VI, line 816 (tr. J. H. Mozley)

Omne homini natale solum.
- All soil is human birthright.
- Book VIII, line 320 (tr. J. H. Mozley)
- Variant translation: The whole world is a man's birthplace.

Da spatium tenuemque moram, male cuncta ministrat
impetus.
- Give time, a little delay; impulse is ever a bad servant.
- Book X, line 704
- Variant translation: Give not reins to your inflamed passions: take time and a little delay; impetuosity manages all things badly.

Silvae

Main article: Silvae

A dignity that charms and virtue gay yet weighty.

Blandus honos hilarisque tamen cum pondere virtus.
- A dignity that charms and virtue gay yet weighty.
- Book II, iii, 65

Mira fides! credetne virum ventura propago,
cum segetes iterum, cum iam haec deserta virebunt,
infra urbes populosque premi proavitaque tanto
rura abiisse mari? necdum letale minari
cessat apex.
- Wonderful but true! Shall future progeny of men believe, when crops grow again and this desert shall once more be green, that cities and peoples are buried below and that an ancestral countryside vanished in a common doom? Nor does the summit yet cease its deadly thrust.
- Book IV, iv, line 81

Stesichorusque ferox saltusque ingressa viriles
non formidata temeraria Leucade Sappho.
- And bold Stesichorus and rash Sappho, who feared not Leucas but took the manly leap.
- Book V, iii, line 154

Achilleid

The translations are by J. H. Mozley, and are taken from vol. 2 of Statius: Silvae, Thebaid, Achilleid, Loeb Classical Library (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1928).

Book I

Aut monstrare lyra veteres heroas alumno.
- Or to describe to his pupil upon his lyre the heroes of old time.
- Line 118

Jamdudum tacito lustrat Thetis omnia visu.
- Long time has Thetis been scanning every corner with silent glance.
- Line 126

Studiis multum Mavortia, Thrace.
- Thrace, steeped in the passionate love of war.
- Line 201

Ni pudor et junctae teneat reverentia matris.
- Did not shame restrain him and awe of the mother by his side.
- Line 312

Dehinc sociare choros castisque accedere sacris
hortantur ceduntque loco et contingere gaudent.
qualiter Idaliae volucres, ubi mollia frangunt
nubila, iam longum caeloque domoque gregatae,
si iunxit pinnas diversoque hospita tractu
venit avis, cunctae primum mirantur et horrent;
mox propius propiusque volant, atque aere in ipso
paulatim fecere suam plausuque secundo
circumeunt hilares et ad alta cubilia ducunt.
- Then they invite her to join the dance and approach the holy rites, and make room for her in their ranks and rejoice to be near her. Just as Idalian birds, cleaving the soft clouds and long since gathered in the sky or in their homes, if a strange bird from some distant region has joined them wing to wing, are at first all filled with amaze and fear; then nearer and nearer they fly, and while yet in the air have made him one of them and hover joyfully around with favouring beat of pinions and lead him to their lofty resting-places.
- Line 370

Tu caeli pelagique nepos.
- You are the grandson of the sky and sea.
- Line 869; Ulysses to Achilles.

Book II

Dignissima caeli
progenies.
- Worthiest progeny of heaven.
- Line 86

Attributed

The cruelty of war makes for peace.
- As quoted in Our Day of Empire (1954) by Louis Obed Renne, p. 180.

Misattributed

Serit arbores, quae alteri saeclo prosint
- He plants trees to benefit another generation.
- Caecilius Statius, Synephebi, as quoted by Cicero in De Senectute, VII.

Quotes about Statius

All Rome is pleased when Statius will rehearse,
And longing crowds expect the promised verse.
~ Juvenal

Lo dolce poeta.
- The sweet poet.
- Dante Alighieri, Convivio, Fourth Treatise, Chapter XXV, 6.

Stazio la gente ancor di là mi noma:
cantai di Tebe, e poi del grande Achille;
ma caddi in via con la seconda soma.
- On earth my name is still remembered—Statius:
  I sang of Thebes and then of great Achilles;
  I fell along the way of that last labor.
- Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy, Purgatorio, Canto XXI, line 91 (tr. Allen Mandelbaum)

And kis the steppes, wher-as thou seest pace
Virgile, Ovyde, Omer, Lucan, and Stace.
- And kiss the steps where you see pace
  Virgil, Ovid, Homer, Lucan, and Stace [Statius].
- Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde, Book V, line 1791

I think Statius a truer poet than Lucan, though he is very extravagant sometimes.
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, remark (dated 2 Sept. 1833) in Specimens of the Table Talk of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Vol. II (1835), p. 262

Strada, in his Prolusions, has placed Statius on the highest top of Parnassus; thereby intimating the strength of his genius, and the lofty spirit of his style; which indeed is generally supported by a bold and lively expression, and full flowing numbers. His manner, therefore, resembles rather the martial strut of a general, and the magnificence of a triumph, than the majestic port and true grandeur of a prince, which better suits the inimitable character of Virgil's style. As a soldier cannot easily lay aside the roughness of his character, neither can Statius descend from the pomp of language and loftiness of numbers, when his subject requires it.
- Lewis Crusius, The Lives Of The Roman Poets (1733), p. 295

[Statius] has as luxuriant an imagination as Lucan, but it is easy to see that he oftener checked it. You will find in his Thebaid innumerable beauties, but you will also see too many faults. You will see a fire and spirit equal to all that appeals in the Poets of the greatest name; but you will wish not only that it had been more limited, but that it had been better regulated: he has a great deal of natural dignity, but in carrying it too far he often spoils its lustre. His language is often elegant to a very great degree, and though not universally, yet in a very great part, is appropriated in a very happy manner. If there be one fault predominant above the others in the Thebaid, it is that he is too florid; but you will see that in this the fault was in the impetuosity of his fancy rather than in defect of judgment: his subject ran away with him, and he gave the reins to imagination. In his Sylvae we see him with all this false glare, natural, elegant, and easy. His Achilleid there is no pronouncing any thing upon, for it was never retouched. You will find in many parts of his Thebaid a great deal of the true sublime: in others he carries it into rant and bombast. In the Achilleid there is more of this in proportion than in the Thebaid; but we are not from thence to conclude that he grew worse in this respect as he continued his application: had he lived to finish, he would also have corrected that poem.
- John Hill, Observations on the Greek and Roman Classics (1753), pp. 224–225

Among the writers of antiquity, I remember none except Statius who ventures to mention the speedy production of his writings, either as an extenuation of his faults, or a proof of his facility. Nor did Statius, when he considered himself as a candidate for lasting reputation, think a closer attention unnecessary, but amidst all his pride and indigence, the two great hasteners of modern poems, employed twelve years upon the Thebaid, and thinks his claim to renown proportionate to his labour.
Thebais, multa cruciata lima,
Tentat, audaci fide, Mantuanae
Gaudia famae.
Polished with endless toil, my lays
At length aspire to Mantuan praise.
- Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 169 (29 October 1751). Cf. Silvae, IV, vii, 26.

Curritur ad vocem jucundam, et carmen amicae
Thebaidos, laetam fecit quum Statius urbem,
Promisitque diem, tanta dulcedine captos
Afficit ille animos, tantaque libidine vulgi
Auditur! sed quum fregit subsellia versu,
Esurit, intactam Paridi nisi vendat Agaven.
- All Rome is pleased when Statius will rehearse,
  And longing crowds expect the promised verse;
  His lofty numbers with so great a gust
  They hear, and swallow with such eager lust:
  But while the common suffrage crowned his cause,
  And broke the benches with their loud applause,
  His Muse had starved, had not a piece unread,
  And by a player bought, supplied her bread.
- Juvenal, Satire VII (tr. Charles Dryden)

In the very beginning he unluckily betrays his ignorance in the rules of poetry (which Horace had already taught the Romans) when he asks his Muse where to begin his Thebaid...
- Alexander Pope, letter to Henry Cromwell (22 January 1709), in Letters of Mr. Pope, Vol. I (1735), p. 93

It may be remarked of Statius's heroes, that an air of impetuosity runs through them all; the same horrid and savage courage appears in his Capaneus, Tydeus, Hippomedon, etc. They have a parity of character which makes them seem brothers of one family.
- Alexander Pope, Preface to The Iliad of Homer (1715)

The best of all the Latin epic poets after Virgil.
- Alexander Pope, as quoted in Joseph Spence's Observations, Anecdotes, and Characters of Books and Men, ed. Edmond Malone (1820), p. 44

I do not scruple to prefer Statius to Virgil; his images are strongly conceived, and clearly painted, and the force of his language, while it makes the reader feel, proves that the author felt himself.
- Robert Southey, Joan of Arc (1796), Preface, p. vii
- Against this, Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote: "The proper petulance of levelism in a youth of two-and-twenty. I will venture to assert Southey had never read, or more than merely looked through, Statius, or Virgil either, except in school lessons." As reported in John Brown's Spare Hours, Vol. II (1861), p. 357

External links

Encyclopedic article on Statius on Wikipedia
Media related to Statius on Wikimedia Commons
Works related to Author:Publius Papinius Statius on Wikisource
Thebaid & Silvae translated by A. S. Kline – Poetry In Translation
Thebaid & Achilleid translated by J. H. Mozley – Theoi Project
Thebaid, Achilleid & Silvae (Latin) – The Latin Library