THE SILVAE BY STATIUS

Silvae is a vague Latin term, which in the present context denotes occasional poems. Those presented here are one of the three surviving works of the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius (ca. AD 45 - ca. 96). They consist of thirty-five poems divided into five books, all probably written between 89 and 96 and shedding considerable light on Roman life in the reign of Domitian. The books were published between 93 and 96. Presented here is everything in them of Greek love interest. The footnotes are this website’s.

I 6 xxviii-xxxiv

The translation is by J. H. Mozley, M. A. for the Loeb Classical Library volume 206, published by William Heinemann in London in 1928.

In a poem describing the magnificence of a Saturnalia banquet given by the Emperor Domitian and attended by the author:

II

Two poems in this book are of Greek love interest. Poem I, consoling his friend Atedius Melior on the death of his puer delicatus is, together with relevant remarks from lines i-xii of the preface, is presented in the article Glaucias and Melior, AD 90. Poem 6, consoling his friend Flavius Ursus on the death of his beloved slave-boy is, together with relevant remarks from lines xx-xxiii of the preface, presented in the article Consolation on the death of a loved slave-boy by Statius, ca. AD 92.

III

[Preface] xvii-xx

The only poem of Greek love interest in this book is number IV, commemorating the dedication of the tresses of Earinus, the Emperor Domitian’s loved slave-boy. This, together with relevant remarks from lines xvii-xx of the preface, is presented in the article Domitian and Earinus, ca. 82-94 AD.

IV 3 xiii-xv

The translation is by D. R. Shackleton Bailey for the Loeb Classical Library volume 206, published by the Harvard University Press in 2003.

In praise of the reigning Emperor Domitian:

V 5 lxvi-lxix

This poem was probably written in the summer of 95 and describing the poet’s grief over the death of an infant boy^[3] born in the poet’s household and for whom he had a father’s feelings, though he was not his real or adoptive father.

The translation is by D. A. Slater, M.A. for The Silvae of Statius published by The Clarendon Press, Oxford in 1908 except for the title (which he did not translate), which is this website’s.

^[1] By “cupbearers from Ida”, Statius means superlatively desirable boys. The king of the gods fell in love with Ganymede, who tended sheep on Mount Ida in his father’s kingdom of Troy, and abducted him to be the cupbearer of the gods. Statius is complimenting the Emperor on both the beauty and the number of his boy-servants. The historian Cassius Dio (Roman History LXVII 9) similarly describes a feast he gave in which the guests were individually served by comely naked boys who unexpectedly later joined them for the night.

^[2] In his capacity of perpetual censor, Domitian issued an edict in 82 banning castration, which had become increasingly common with a new fashion in Rome for catamites who were eunuchs and thus likely to preserve their boyish beauty much longer. Domitian himself, as well as his brother and predecessor, was keen on such boys. His beloved boy eunuch Earinus is the subject of Statius’s Silvae III 4. Since it was boys who were beautiful and thus promising as eventual catamites who were chosen for castration, it could well be termed “the punishment of fair form.” Perhaps Domitian was influenced by his love and sympathy for Earinus in issuing the edict.
     “On the face of it adultos should refer to emasculation after puberty, but this could only have been exceptional. Statius must have been thinking of boys before puberty as opposed to infants, but his wording seems indefensible. The edict presumably banned such emasculation at any age.” (D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Statius: Silvae, Loeb Classical Library volume 206, Harvard University Press, 2003, p. 257, footnote 5)

^[3] The boy’s age is not given, but an infans usually meant a little child not nearly pubescent. He was at least old enough to speak, since line 86 reveals Statius’s name had been his “first utterance”, while the suggestion that he might be mistaken for a parrot suggests he could speak much more than that.

^[4] The references to the boy not being bought from an Egyptian galley or being native to the Nile are to make it clear (as might otherwise be supposed in a case of an eminent Roman grieving over a boy’s loss) that Statius’s boy was not a bought Egyptian slave-boy. Statius here means more generally that he was not a bought catamite. Egyptian pueri delicati (slave-boys bought for sexual and social pleasure, often naked and shown off to one’s social circle and generally pampered rather than used for menial tasks) had a uniquely high reputation for giving pleasure, whether through native disposition or through effective training before sale. Probably they were unusually uninhibited as well as skilled in bed; in his epigram IV 42 about the sort of boy he would most like to have, Martial, clearly a  connoisseur of boys, says “First, let this boy be born in the land of Nile; no country knows better how to give naughty ways.” A contrast with Statius’s boy is offered by the freedman Trimalchio in  Petronius’s Satyricon 31 ii and 75 x-xi, who reveals that he had indeed been bought, and had served both his master and his mistress sexually. Trimalchio also had Alexandrian catamites in his service, implying that they were extremely luxurious possessions. Other references to “favourites” (as  Statius’s “delicias” is here translated) confirm their reputation for witty repartee or being “parrots” (ie. chatterboxes), for example, Dio Cassius, Roman History XLVIII 44 iii and LXVII 15 iii.
     Comparison with Statius’s Silvae II 1, where Statius makes exactly the same point about his friend Atedius Melior’s puer delicatus, Glaucias, also born a slave in his master’s household and likewise brought up as a special favourite from infancy, but who, dying at twelve, had reached a sufficient age to be taken by his master as his lover, invites speculation about the role of the unnamed boy in this poem, his boy, but not his son, only an infant and (thus, one might suggest) not his lover. It is implied that if Statius did not make it clear that it was not true, it might well be assumed that Statius’s boy had been bought to be a catamite. Others therefore saw him as destined to become Statius’s beloved. Does it not appear that, unsurprisingly, connoisseurs of boys kept an eye out for slave-boys born in their households or on their country estates and accorded a special upbringing to those who promised to be beauties, raising them for love rather than labour, freeing them, perhaps educating them and earning their love with a view to making them idyllic lovers when they reached or approached puberty? The difference then between Statius’s boy here and Glaucias would be that the former died too young for Statius to have taken him to his bed or write about him using the language of Eros.