Statius, Publius Papinius, a celebrated Latin poet, who was born at Naples, A.D. 61. His father was of a patrician family, but being poor, he maintained himself by teaching rhetoric, first at Naples, and afterwards at Rome. The emperor Domitian is said to have been one of his pupils. He was a master of the Greek as well as the Latin tongue, and was a poet as well as a rhetorician. If we could rely on the statements of his son, he was little inferior to Homer in poetical genius; but as his contemporaries have nowhere noticed him, it may fairly be presumed, that his affection for his father blinded the son's judgment.

Statius received his education at Rome, and married at an early age (A.D. 81) a widow named Claudia, whom he frequently mentions in his verses. He was distinguished by his powers as an improvisatore, which seem to have been very considerable, and he often appeared before the public in the poetical contests of the age. In these he was not unfrequently victorious; yet though crowds flocked to hear the recitation of his Thebais, Juvenal, Sat. vii. 87, remarks, that he would have perished from hunger, if he had not been able to sell to the principal actor of the day his tragedy of Agave, which is now lost. His high reputation however excited against him many enemies, and among others Martial, who, it is observed, never took any notice of Statius. The principal poem of Statius is entitled Thebais; it is an epic poem in twelve cantos, and a work of considerable merit. It relates to the Theban war under the sons of Oedipus, and is in reality, like that of Silius Italicus, an historical poem, the materials for which have been drawn principally from Greek sources, more particularly from the Thebais of Antimachus. He has taken for his model Virgil's Æneid, but has not been very successful in his imitation. Another of his poems is entitled Achilleis, being intended to exhibit a detailed account of the life and deeds of Achilles, from the moment of his birth; but the author did not live to complete his plan, and only two books remain, the last of which is imperfect. This portion contains only a small part of the life of Achilles. We have besides a collection of thirty-two poems, divided into five books, and bearing the title of Silvaes. They are mostly in hexameter, but some few in Alcaic, Sapphic, and Phaleucian verse. Having fallen into a feeble state of health, he retired to Naples in the hope of deriving some benefit from his native air. Here he laboured at his Achilleis; but death arrested his progress before he had completed the thirty-sixth year of his age.

The poems of Statius exhibit nearly the same faults as are to be found in the works of Silius Italicus, and Valerius Flaccus. He possesses the rhetorical spirit of his age, which, disregarding the beauties of simplicity, aimed at effect by ingenious turns of expression, and a display of great learning. His language is sometimes bombastic. His works were at one period, not of the most refined taste, held in as great estimation as those of Virgil. The first collective edition of his poems appeared at Venice in 1483, folio. They had been separately printed at an earlier period. The subsequent editions are sufficiently numerous. Among the more elaborate of the early editions, we must mention that of Lindenbrog, Paris, 1600, 4to. It includes the scholia of Lactantius, or Lactatius, on the Thebais and Achilleis. Nor must we omit the accurate edition of Groenovius, Amst.1653,12mo. The same able critic had previously published "In P. Papinii Statii Silvarum libros v. Diatribe," Hagae Com. 1637, 8vo. An edition of Statius is not long afterwards published with the very elaborate and learned commentary of Barthius, Cygnar, 1664, 2 tom. 4to. The commentator was then dead, and the edition was superintended by Daumius. Considerable additions were here made to the ancient scholia formerly printed. Another critic to whom this poet has many obligations, is Markland, who published, with notes and emendations, a separate edition of the "Silvarum libri quinque." Lond. 1728, 4to. Among the attempts at English translation, we may mention Lewis's version of "The Thebaid of Statius," Oxford, 1767, 2 vols. 8vo.