Chapter XLVIII: Book III: opens with a record of the dedication of a temple to Hercules by

Pollius Felix at Sorrento on a spot where the old narrow shrine once gave shelter to a picnic party surprised on a hot summer day by tempest. The poet thinks the spacious building has improved what was

A barren sandy shore but yesterday,
A hillside which the sea-foam splashed upon,
Cliffs rough with brier, ground that foothold grudged.[1423]

The second piece is a send-off (_propempticon_) to the author’s patron Maecius Celer about to sail for Egypt, where, the poem reminds us, the grain ships come from. Echoing Horace, Statius says his patron takes with him the better half of his soul (_animae partem ... maiorem_), and he dwells on the pain of parting. The gradually disappearing vessel is pictured:

The barque speeds o’er the wandering tides in flight,
Faint by degrees, defeating eyes that strain
Afar, and clasps within its slender boards
Legions of fears.[1424]

His self-recrimination over failure to go abroad with his patron scarcely rings true, especially when supported with mythological instances; but the imagined reunion on the traveller’s return and the anticipation of the story of intervening years make a natural conclusion. The third poem is another consolation: it is addressed to Claudius Etruscus on his father’s death. The poet too, he says, had mourned a father.[1425] The dead Etruscus, though of servile origin, was ennobled by service, and obedience is a law of nature. The sketch of his career is interesting. Freed by Tiberius, he attended Caligula as a keeper might a wild beast; he had high responsibilities under Claudius and Nero; and his preferment in the civil service to the treasury was a tribute to his ability in dealing with estimates. All this is cleverly told in well-turned verses; and a pleasant account is given of his married life. Unfortunately, artificiality is not absent. The conceit of fluttering Cupids dropping wing-feathers on a funeral pyre or supplying discarded arrow-cases to make fuel for the cremation is supremely ridiculous; and when the grief of Etruscus for the loss of his father is compared with the grief of Theseus in like case, we feel the mythological parallel detracts from the simplicity befitting a deep sorrow. The fourth poem, one of the least pleasing, turns on the dedication to Aesculapius of the locks of Earinus, one of the emperor’s eunuchs. The fifth, on the other hand, has charm in its playful remonstrance with his wife on her alleged reluctance to accompany her husband when he has decided to quit Rome for the Bay of Naples. Could she refuse, after sharing loyally his hours of triumph and defeat, after full knowledge of his literary toil on the _Thebaid_, after nursing him back from the point of death? Facetiously he assures her that her daughter can find suitors elsewhere than in Rome: the district of his choice has not been completely devastated by the fires of Vesuvius! This home to which he invites her is “his own, his native land” (_natale solum_), blest with temperate climate and with peace. He ends this persiflage with a reminder of the legendary and literary associations of the Bay of Naples.

The first three poems of Book IV are overburdened with the praises of Domitian, and celebrate respectively his Majesty’s seventeenth consulship, his hospitality in the banqueting-hall, and his greatness as a road-maker. There follows a poetical epistle counselling a busy friend to take a holiday:

Timely repose incites and nurtures strength,
And manhood after rest grows manlier.[1426]

The one Alcaic lyric of the _Siluae_ is a spring-ode to Septimius Severus, a native of North Africa. After it stands the hexametric poem which proves the value attached by Statius to the literary and artistic accompaniments of a dinner-party. Then Sapphics are addressed to Vibius Maximus abroad:

When will sweet Latium once more welcome you
From the Dalmatian hills, where, having sought
In hell, the miner comes back pale, in hue
Like gold up-brought.[1427]

But there is a child at home to greet Vibius: let the child learn from his father the historical skill wherewith he traces the antiquity of the world, recalling the style of terse Sallust and of “the nurseling of Timavus” (Livy). The eighth poem conveys congratulations to Julius Menecrates on the birth of a third child, so that, as the poet is quick to point out, the emperor’s previous concession of the _ius trium liberorum_ had merely anticipated Lucina’s actual gift. The final piece, addressed in a bantering spirit to a friend on his return-present of a mouldy old book, submits a humorous list of possible cheap things to give away.