1807.) 
vessary further to say of this writer, ant 
indeed all that we know of bim with cer- 
tainty, is comprised in the following ex~ 
tract of a letter from the younger Pliny, 
to Caninius Rufus, (lib. S. Epist. 7.) as 
translated by Lord Gieby, 
“ Tam just now told that Silius Italicus 
has starved himself to death, at his coun- 
try house near Naples. The cause was 
his health. He suifered so much by a 
cancerous humour, which was become 
absolutely incurable, that be grew weary 
of life and hastened his own end witha 
constancy not to be moved. He was 
happy to the last day, except in the loss 
of the youncev of his two sons; however, 
he left the elder, the worthier man of the 
two, ina flourishing, and even in a con- 
sular state. He had sullied his charac- 
ter in the time of Nero—he was thought to 
have accused several persons otliciously. 
But under the favour of Vitellius, he 
behaved himself wisely and with great. 
humanity. He acquired a large share of 
glory from. Is Asiatic pro- consulship, 
and expunged the blots of his former 
severity by a commendable retreat. He 
lived among the great without power, and 
without envy. He was much respected 
and much visited. He wrote verses with 
more pains and exactness than wit, and 
now and then, to try the opinion of man- 
Kind, he repeated some of his works in 
public. At length, he retired from Rome, 
his ave prompting him to such a resolu- 
tion, “and settled himself in Ca ampania, 
nor stirred from thence even upon the 
accession of a new prince to the throne. 
The emperor deserves the highest ap- 
plause for giving such a liberty, and Ita- 
licus no ike for daring te use it. Ele was 
much taken with all fine things, in which 
he was guided by appetite father than 
jude He had several villas in the 
same country, and neglected the old as 
soon as he became enamoured of anew 
purchase. He had in each villa a great 
number of books, statues, and pictures ; 
and these he not only enjoyed but 
adored. Yhe statue of Virgil heid the 
first place in his veneration. He cele- 
brated the birth-day of that poet with 
greater solemnity than his own, especi= 
ally at Naples, where he vis sited Virgil’s 
tomb, with the same reverence as if it 
had been a temple. In this tranguil 
state of life he outlived his seventy-five 
years, rather with a delicate than an in- 
firin constitution, and as he was the es 
consul made by Nero, so he died the las 
of all the consuls appointed by Nero,” 
Silius is also more than once celebrated 
ine ie 
Lyceum of Ancient Laterature—Silius Itadeus, 
457 
by Martial,* and complimented by hia 
on the number and peculiar felicity of 
his possessions, But it was much easier 
to be proprietor of Tusculum, and the 
owner of a farm, that once belonged to 
the poet ef Mantua, than to succeed te 
the talents and reputation of Cicero or 
Virgil.” 
By the English critics, the minor poets 
of Greece and Rome have seldom been 
sufficiently noticed; and Silius, in parti- 
cular, has been almost entirely over- 
looked. In France, two respectable 
scholars have commented on this author, 
but with very different sentiments. ee 
febyre de Villebrune, + a man of a live}: 
and impetuous fancy, in his zeal for the 
poet he has adopted, bas not scrupled to 
eall him divine, and considers him not at: 
all interior to Virgil.  M. Clement, { en 
the other hand, has appealed with indig- 
nation from such exaggerated praisa, aud 
falling into the otber extreme, has cen- 
sured the poem as trifling, inconsistent, 
and even absurd. rnesti and Ruperti 
have condemned these opinions as equally 
erroneous, and have not been influenced 
by either. The question as to what is, 
‘and what is not, an epic poem, was re- 
vived with tedious for mality. Whilst all 
maintained it to be of the essence of an 
epic, that the argument should he one 
and €ntire, and exhibit but one principal 
personage from whom the main action or 
chief events shauld be naturally deduced, 
“some thought they perceived this unity 
sufficiently preserved in the character of 
Aurynibal ; others, who saw in the poem 3 
number of incidents detached trom. the 
exploits of Annibal, have assigned to it 
the vague and indetinit appellation of an 
historical poem, or poetical narrative, 
fonnded on real sn Tt is known 
that the subject of the poem is the second 
Funie War, as related inthe third Decada 
of Livy, and it includes all the principal 
events of that war from the siege of 
Saguntum, to the defeat of Anntbal, and 
the conquest of Carthage. The destruc- 
tion of Saguntum, the passage of the 
Alps, the actions at Trebia and Thrasy- 
menus, the defeat o Cann, and. at 
length the victory at Z sama, which effe 2Ct~ 
ed such a change in the fortune of the 
war, ard produced the subversion of a 
* Lib. 2. Ep. 49. Lib. 
Ep. 64. Lib. 11. Ep. 49. 
Pref. to Paris edit. of Sil. Ital. 
{ Essais de Critique sur la Litt, Anc. ef 
Mod. Amst. 1785. 
§ Even Vossius has clas 
historical writers, 
7. Ep. 62. Lib, 6. ~ 
sed Sil. Ital. among 
republic 
