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Proceedings of the Royal Society 
was in his eighteenth year at the time of the eruption. The part of 
the works of Statius which concerns us is known not to have been 
composed earlier than a.d. 59, sixteen years after the event. Passing 
over two casual allusions, one of which does intimate loss of life 
among high-born families, I turn to the fourth epistle of the fourth 
book of a collection of poems, entitled The Woods (Sylvee) ; a set 
of compositions which, though thrown off in haste and regarded by 
their author as trifles, have been pronounced by an excellent judge, 
the late Professor Pamsay of the University of Glasgow, to be far 
more pleasing than his completed epic the Thebais , and his incomplete 
one, the Achilleis. The lines (78-86) present scarcely any difficulty, 
and I offer the following prose rendering. They are addressed to a 
friend of the poet named Victorius Marcellus ; and the region is called 
Chalcidian, because it was believed to have been colonised by emi- 
grants from Chalcis, in Euboea. Two other spots mentioned in these 
verses, namely, Teate (now Chieti) and the Marrucinian mountains, 
were on the eastern side of Italy, at least 70 miles from the volcano. 
“ Such are the strains which I pour forth to thee, Marcellus, from 
these Chalcidian shores, where Vesuvius has enacted his shattering 
deeds of wrath, kindling a conflagration that rivals the flames of 
Etna. A marvellous demand on faith [for so I venture to paraphrase 
the words mira fides !]. Will future generations of men believe, when 
crops are again flourishing and these deserted spots are green, that 
cities and populations lie buried beneath (infra urbes populosque 
premi), and that ancestral fields have vanished in mid-ocean ? not 
even yet does the mountain’s crest refrain from deadly threats : far 
from thy Teate be such a fate, and may this fury never reach the 
Marrucinian mountains.” 
Hac ego Chalcidicis, ad te, Marcelle, sonabam 
Littoribus, fractas ubi Vesbius egerit iras, 
iEmula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. 
Mira fides ! credetne virum ventura propago, 
Cirni segetes iterum, cum jam hsec deserta virebunt, 
Infra urbes populosque premi, proavitaque toto 
Rura abiisse mari ? necdum letale minari 
Cessat apex : procul ista tuo sint fata Teate, 
Nec Marrucinos agat hsec insania montes. 
Sylvee, lib. iv. carm. iv. 78-86.* 
* Dean Merivale calls attention to the other allusions made by Statius to a 
subject “peculiarly interesting to him as a native of Peapolis.” They also 
