A Dinner of Epic Proportion Though the literary acclaim of Statius was greatly influenced by his good graces with Domitian, he scarcely wastes an opportunity to deride the emperor. Almost blatantly, the poet infuses his works and accounts of the emperor with a heavy dosage of satire. He surely did this to be able to criticize the absurdity and false sense of grandeur of Caesar without fear of retribution. Under the guise of satire, Statius was able to convey his true feelings of Rome and her emperor. The poem immediately begins with the juxtaposition of two of the most prolific epic poems to Statius’s dinner with Domitian. Invoking the heroic nature of the Odyssey and the Aeneid, Statius seems to recount that he must surely feel as the protagonists …show more content…
Had Statius had to extol the emperor in person like he did in his poem, the night was sure to have been insufferable. Another interesting moment in the poem was when Statius pled …show more content…
Multiple times, the poet announces how he could scarcely concentrate on anything other than the divine countenance of the emperor (255). Going even further, Statius declares that all these years of his life had been for naught; the dinner with Domitian was the point in his life when he finally began living (254). Though modern readers can almost instantly detect this extreme level of satire, his usage thereof can be rather revealing of the nature of Domitian. The reader must keep in mind that Statius was one of the emperor’s favorite poets, due to the fact that his works were full of praise, even if sneakily superficial, for the emperor. If Statius was able to write this without fear of retribution from Caesar, he must expect Domitian to read the work and be in complete accordance with its contents. If this is the case, a very telling glimpse into the nature of emperor, and subsequently Rome’s political landscape, can be gleaned. Rome and her emperor were in the middle of a time of silly, impractical opulence, and Statius wanted to expose this