Critics generally agree that Statius’ Silvae 2.4, a poem about a dead parrot dedicated to Statius’ patron Atedius Melior, is modelled closely on Ovid's Amores 2.6, a poem about Corinna's dead parrot.Footnote 1 In particular, many read Statius’ poem as picking up on the metapoetic strand in the Ovidian model, in which the parrot may be interpreted as a poet-figure,Footnote 2 though they also note that Statius’ poem shows more of a concern for the tensions involved in a poet's relationship to his patron (and the emperor).Footnote 3 I agree with this general interpretation of the poem and its metapoetic aspect; however, there are some oddities about the dead parrot and its relationship to its dominus that have not been fully explained by theories that equate the parrot with either Statius or a non-specific Flavian poet-figure and the dominus with Atedius Melior or a similar patron-figure. For instance, why is the parrot dead, and why does Statius write an epicedium for it that is similar in tone to the epicedia for dead people in Silvae 2?Footnote 4 Why is the parrot's relationship to its master an ambiguous one such that his cage can be described as a prison (carcer, 2.4.15), and the master's grief over the parrot's death is never specifically mentioned?Footnote 5 Finally, why does the parrot speak the name of Caesar instead of Atedius Melior, the friend of Statius to whom the poem is dedicated?Footnote 6
My interpretation of the poem attempts to answer these questions by suggesting that the parrot stands in for a specific dead poet/writer, namely Petronius, and that the dominus of the poem is not Atedius Melior but Nero. The dominus of the parrot is mentioned in the first line of the poem (domini facunda uoluptas, 2.4.1) but is never directly addressed, has no loving or descriptive epithet attached to him, and there is no indication of a close relationship with Statius. The name of Melior is withheld until line 32 of the poem, and by this point Statius has provided his readers with the tools necessary to decode this complex parrot-poem and insert Atedius Melior into the story. In contrast to the dominus, Melior is addressed in the second person by Statius (tu, Melior dilecte, 2.4.32) and with the usual warmth familiar from Statius’ other addresses to Melior in Silv. 2 pr., 2.1 and 2.3.Footnote 7 Melior is not explicitly equated with the dominus of the parrot; Statius simply says that Melior was never alone when the parrot was brought out (recluso | numquam solus eras, 2.4.32–3).Footnote 8 But Statius, as an astute reader of Ovid, would know that ‘presence’ can be summoned through literature and that Atedius Melior can ‘be’ with his parrot anytime he takes out his Petronius to read.Footnote 9
While my approach to Silvae 2.4 might seem too allegorical for a poet who earned a living commemorating ‘real’ occasions in the Silvae, I would point out that Statius warns his readers in his preface to Book 2 that Silvae 2.4, along with 2.3 on Melior's tree, are ‘light pieces’ ( leues libellos, 2 pr.), written like epigrams (quasi epigrammatis loco scriptos, 2 pr.), and that Silvae 2.5 on the dead lion demands the same lightness of the pen (eandem exigebat stili facilitatem , 2 pr.).Footnote 10 While Statius could simply be noting the inherent levity of writing about trees, parrots and lions, or the formal similarity of these poems to epigrams written about objects and animals, he may also be signalling that these poems demand a different sort of attention and have a more complicated relationship to ‘real life’ than his usual occasional poem. In particular, given the way in which Silvae 2.4 advertises its many connections to Ovid's Amores 2.6, it seems fair to conclude that literature was as much of an inspiration for this poem as any real-life event. Labelling his parrot-poem a libellus may also remind the reader of the author who seems first to have made libellus into a programmatic word in Latin poetry and also first made a dead-bird poem into a programmatic statement of his ludic poetics, namely Catullus.Footnote 11 Presumably Silvae 2.4 also reflects the particular literary tastes of Atedius Melior, whom Statius constructs as the ideal reader of this short poem in his depiction of Melior's retired life, full of ‘cheerful yet serious virtue’ (hilarisque tamen cum pondere uirtus, 2.3.65) and ‘not lazy rest’ (nec pigra quies, 2.3.66).Footnote 12 These oxymorons are not dissimilar from the contradictory qualities highlighted in Tacitus’ portrayal of Petronius, which I will discuss further below; Tacitus depicts Petronius himself as an ideal reader of poems like Silvae 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5, since Petronius chooses to listen to leuia carmina et facilis uersus as he dies (Ann. 16.19). Statius’ portrait of Melior also portrays him as an ideal patron, who, far from keeping his poet-friends trapped in a birdcage-prison, offers thoughtful criticism (Silv. 2 pr.), eschews unjust power (Silv. 2.3.66) and is generous with his wealth (Silv. 2.3.70–1).
As will become clear in my discussion, I support the generally accepted identification of Tacitus’ Petronius with the author of the Satyrica. Obviously, this identification is not certain, but, as many critics feel, the evidence is in its favour.Footnote 13 While this is not the place to defend a Neronian date in full, I have not found the usual arguments for a later dating persuasive: for example, the supposed lack of an appropriate pre-Neronian Greek model for the Satyrica (if a model must be had) has been well countered by Gottskálk Jensson, who argues that the genre of the Satyrica should be considered Milesian fiction, which is certainly attested (though without surviving examples) before the Neronian age.Footnote 14 In addition, the supposed allusions in the Satyrica to Flavian authors such as Martial and Statius could be explained (and I think more persuasively so) as allusions from the later authors to Petronius.Footnote 15 Indeed, as Heikki Solin has persuasively argued, Petronius was widely enough read to inspire the use of the name Encolpius, likely invented by Petronius, for numerous slaves and freedmen born in the Neronian period or shortly thereafter, including the reader of Pliny the Younger.Footnote 16 A similar explanation could lie behind the ingenious connection Ulrike Roth draws between the names of three slaves inherited by Pliny the Younger (C. Valerius Aper, C. Valerius Dionysius and C. Valerius Astraeus) and the three figures manumitted by Trimalchio in the Satyrica, namely a boar (aper), a slave named Dionysus, and an acrobat who falls down at the feast of Trimalchio.Footnote 17 I do acknowledge that the lack of certainty about the authorship of the Satyrica adds to the possibility that my interpretation of the parrot as Tacitus’ Petronius and the author of the Satyrica could be wrong; on the other hand, if my argument is convincing, it could add further support to identifying the author Petronius with the Neronian courtier and provide a rare window into the reception of Petronius by the next generation.
Before turning to the text of Silvae 2.4 itself, I would like to bring in two pieces of external evidence that help to support my reading of the parrot as Petronius. First, I would note that Book 2 of the Silvae has a parallel tribute to another Neronian writer, namely Lucan in Silvae 2.7, a tribute to the dead poet on his birthday. While the theme of Silvae 2 is often said to be ‘death’, and Silvae 2.4 is most frequently compared to the consolatio-poems 2.1 and 2.6 on the deaths of beloved slave-boys, there are also important parallels with Silvae 2.7.Footnote 18 Of course, Lucan's untimely death caused by Nero, and not just his poetry or his birthday, is also a theme of 2.7, and the parallels with 2.4 become more striking if the parrot represents another literary victim of Nero.Footnote 19 Thus, like Ovid, Statius makes his parrot-poem parallel to a tribute to a dead poet.Footnote 20 If Statius celebrates Lucan by commemorating the day of his birth, then perhaps he celebrates Petronius by recalling his famous death.Footnote 21
The other piece of external evidence potentially relevant for understanding Silvae 2.4 is a poem from the Anthologia Latina attributed to Petronius and spoken in the voice of a parrot (Anth. Lat. 691 R):Footnote 22
The Indian land bore me on its purple shore where the shining day returns with burning orb. Here, born amid divine honours, I exchanged barbarian words for Latin sounds. Now send away your swans, O Delphic Healer; this voice is more worthy to inhabit your temple.
Connors interprets the juxtaposition between parrots and swans here metapoetically: the swan represents the loftier poetic discourse of epic and the parrot the parodic imitative voice of Petronius.Footnote 23 While the context of this poem is missing, its defence of ‘parrot poetics’ is potentially important for understanding Petronius’ self-image as a writer. After all, the parrot is no nightingale or swan, and, as Myers notes, imitative birds ‘appear in Greek and Latin literary-critical contexts as symbols for the most part of bad poetry’.Footnote 24 Persius’ prologue (8–14), in which he criticizes parrot-poets (and magpies and ravens) for being motivated by their belly and money, provides a particularly relevant contemporary context.Footnote 25 Perhaps Petronius ironically appropriates an image of the parrot to defend himself against critics who may have portrayed him as the trained bird of Nero.Footnote 26 In addition, Petronius’ decision to place a ‘mottled magpie’ (pica uaria),Footnote 27 who salutes guests (intrantes salutabat) in a golden cage (cauea … aurea) at the entrance to Trimalchio's house (28.9) potentially has metapoetic ramifications: might the magpie represent Petronius’ own life trapped in the domus aurea?Footnote 28 While I would certainly not base my interpretation of Silvae 2.4 on these Petronian passages alone, the fact that Petronius may have associated his poetic voice with that of a parrot (or a magpie) nicely coheres with my approach to Statius’ poem, to which I will now turn.
Statius’ opening address to the parrot (Silv. 2.4.1–2) contains several descriptions that resonate with both Tacitus’ portrait of Petronius and the style of the Satyrica:
Parrot, leader of birds, the eloquent pleasure of his master, parrot, the skilful imitator of human speech …
Statius’ description of the parrot as the ‘eloquent pleasure of his master’ (domini facunda uoluptas, 2.4.1) fits well with Tacitus’ description of Petronius as famous for his ‘erudite luxury’ (erudito luxu, Ann. 16.18) and for his ‘knowledge of pleasures’ (scientia uoluptatum, Ann. 16.18)—phrases that, like facunda uoluptas, combine cerebral ability with profligate interests. Dominus, in turn, could reference an emperor: in addition to Domitian's supposed use of the term (Suet. Dom. 13.1–2; Cass. Dio 67.4.7), Statius calls Nero dominus in his poem on Lucan (Silv. 2.7.61).Footnote 30 Finally, the description of the parrot as a ‘skilful imitator of human speech’ (Silv. 2.4.2) could pick up on the unique mixture of different linguistic styles and literary registers in the Satyrica.Footnote 31
After the initial description of the parrot, Statius moves quickly to the topic of the parrot's sudden death (Silv. 2.4.3):
This question, though phrased as a rhetorical one, leaves open the possibility that someone is in fact responsible for the parrot's death. Commentators avoid this implication by comparing other passages in which fate or the gods are vaguely held responsible for a death,Footnote 32 but Statius does not blame fate or the gods here—he asks only who caused the sudden fate of the parrot and thus piques the reader's curiosity. In addition, Statius’ emphasis on the shutting off of the parrot's speech allows for the possibility that it is the parrot's speech that led to its death. As Newlands notes, ‘The stifling of the parrot's voice may allude to a prominent theme of Ovid's Metamorphoses: the deprivation of speech is often a punishment for those who rely on the voice, esp. women and poets.’Footnote 33
Critics also generally comment that, unlike Ovid, Statius provides no description of the parrot's death but only of his feast the night before his death.Footnote 34 On the contrary, I would argue that this feast (Silv. 2.4.4–8) is the parrot's death-scene and that it alludes to Petronius’ famous exitus:
You engaged in feasts with us yesterday, piteous one, about to die, and we saw you enjoying the gifts of the pleasing table and wandering from couch to couch past midnight. You even recited greetings and practised words.
The feasting habits of Statius’ bird form a stark contrast with the Spartan diet of Ovid's parrot (Am. 2.6.29–32) and fit well with Tacitus’ depiction of Petronius as a refined voluptuary in Ann. 16.18.Footnote 35 More importantly, the combination of dining and death indicated by Statius’ phrasing (dapes moriturus inisti, 2.4.4) brings to mind Petronius’ staged death at a banquet. Even the wording that Statius uses in this phrase is reminiscent of the wording used by Pliny the Elder and Tacitus, the only authors to mention Petronius’ death: Pliny describes how Petronius, ‘about to die because of the jealousy of Nero’ ( moriturus inuidia Neronis), purposely broke an expensive ladle of Nero so that it could not be inherited (NH 37.2). Tacitus, in his description of Petronius’ final night, writes that Petronius ‘engaged in a banquet’ ( iniit epulas, Ann. 16.19). Tacitus also describes Petronius addressing his friends (adloqui amicos, Ann. 16.19) and enjoying light poetry and verses ( leuia carmina et facilis uersus, Ann. 16.19)—activity that resonates with the parrot's own addresses and practised words (adfatus etiam meditataque uerba | reddideras, Silv. 2.4.7–8) on his final night, as well as with Statius’ concluding description of the parrot as a witty and clever dinner-guest (conuiua leuis monstrataque reddere uerba | tam facilis , Silv. 2.4.31–2).Footnote 36 While obviously Statius cannot be directly alluding to Tacitus’ Annales, he could be alluding to a common source.
Indeed, Statius’ use of uidimus (‘we saw’) to introduce his memory of the parrot's last banquet does not need to imply that he witnessed the event in person; it could refer to the experience of reading or hearing from a literary source about the parrot's final night. This trope of conflating an experience derived from literature or seen in the mind's eye with real lived experience is a favourite device of Ovid, who, particularly in his exile poems, calls attention to how he can be with his friends through their letters or how he can himself travel to Rome in his imagination.Footnote 37 Thus, Ovid can witness a triumph back in Rome in his mind's eye from exile (Tr. 4.2.57–64) or can summon his fellow poet and friend Macer to be with him in the land of the Getae simply by remembering their previous journey together through Asia and Sicily (Pont. 2.10.21–52).Footnote 38 During this journey with Macer, Ovid notes that they ‘saw the magnificent cities of Asia’ (magnificas Asiae perspeximus urbes, 2.10.21) and ‘saw the sky glisten with Aetna's flame’ ( uidimus Aetnaea caelum splendescere flamma, 2.10.23). Yet, as Hardie comments, ‘it is impossible to distinguish what the sightseer sees on the spot from the vivid verbal pictures of these famous places in poetic ecphrases’. In addition to Hardie, several other scholars have suggested that Macer's and Ovid's journey together was a metapoetic journey through works of literature as much as (or perhaps more than) a real journey.Footnote 39 Both Gareth Williams and Stephen Heyworth have also noted an allusion in Ovid's Pont. 2.10.37–8 to Callimachus’ epigram for the dead poet Heraclitus, in which Callimachus recalls long conversations with Heraclitus, whose poetry, figured as nightingales, still lives on (Epigr. 2 Pf.).Footnote 40 Heyworth even argues that Callimachus’ friendship with Heraclitus is not rekindled through reading the poetry of his dead friend but in fact has only ever existed through the reading of poetry.Footnote 41 Thus, there is ample literary precedent for Statius to figure his and Atedius Melior's relationship with the parrot-poet of Silvae 2.4 as a relationship kept alive (and perhaps solely experienced) through literature. And, just as Callimachus’ and Heraclitus’ ‘nightingales’ contribute to immortalizing that poet, so the parrot-poet finds immortality symbolically as a Phoenix (Silv. 2.4.37), as well as through Statius’ (and others’) recounting of his death at his final banquet.Footnote 42
Statius’ next statement about the parrot's death (Silv. 2.4.8–10) creates a comparison with swans reminiscent of Petronius’ parrot poem:
But now that melodious bird, you possess the eternal silence of Lethe. Let the people's Phaethontian tale yield: not only swans make famous/celebrate their own deaths.
Petronius’ parrot poem similarly dismisses swans (iam dimitte tuos, Paean o Delphice, cycnos, 5) in favour of the worthier voice of the parrot (dignior haec uox est, 6). Statius does not just dismiss the swans as less worthy but describes his parrot with an adjective (canorus) frequently reserved for swans.Footnote 43 In addition, Statius’ allusions to Ovid's Metamorphoses in these lines further underscore the parrot's competition with the epic genre/swan.Footnote 44 Finally, as Newlands points out on the verb celebrant (2.4.10), ‘St[atius] plays here on the dual meaning of this verb as “celebrate” (OLD 3) and “make famous” (OLD 7) with an eye perhaps on the fame of his own “bird” poem’.Footnote 45 Yet, it is not just Statius who makes the death of this parrot famous, and I would argue that he is here alluding to Petronius’ own staging of his death as a performance in its own right and one which likely acquired fame immediately.
Statius next reflects on the parrot's life before his death and describes his luxurious cage (Silv. 2.4.11–15):
But how great was your house gleaming with its golden dome, and the silver row of bars joined to ivory, and the doors shrilly screeching at the touch of your beak, and the doors complaining now on their own accord! That rich prison is empty, and nowhere is the abuse of the august dwelling.
Many scholars have noted that Statius describes the parrot's cage in terms appropriate to a luxurious human villa,Footnote 46 and I would argue that the cage particularly recalls Nero's infamous domus aurea. As Newlands notes, Statius uniquely extends the usage of domus to denote a cage.Footnote 47 Indeed, domus rutila is virtually a synonym for the domus aurea, and even if rutila modifies the testudine and not the domus, its placement adjacent to the domus is suggestive of a ‘golden house’.Footnote 48 The golden dome (rutila testudine) itself is reminiscent of the famous vaulted ceilings of Nero's palace.Footnote 49 The combination of the gold and ivory materials of the cage also fits with the décor described by Suetonius (Ner. 31.2). In addition, commentators have noted an allusion in Silv. 2.4.12 to Ovid's chariot of the sun (aureus axis erat, temo aureus, aurea summae | curuatura rotae, radiorum argenteus ordo , Met. 2.107–8).Footnote 50 This allusion, combined with the reference to the Phaethon myth in 2.4.9–10, is particularly significant in the light of Nero's own association with the Sun-God (and with charioteering).Footnote 51 Indeed, Seneca chooses precisely these Ovidian lines, in addition to lines describing the Sun-God's palace (Met. 2.1–2), to denounce the ‘Golden Age’ of Nero's Rome (Sen. Ep. 115.12–13).Footnote 52
The next lines (Silv. 2.4.13–14) turn away from the luxurious cage and focus on the rather unpleasant noises of the parrot as it rattles the doors of his cage—doors which make their own complaints now that the parrot is gone. While it is true that argutus can be used as a positive literary-critical term,Footnote 53 stridere usually connotes a harsh sound, and querula can mean ‘complaining’ as well as ‘lamenting’.Footnote 54 Thus, while I do not deny a literary-critical element to these terms that could pick up on the parrot's poetic skill, the harsh quality of the noises also prepares the way for conuicia (‘insults, abuse’) in the next line (2.4.15). Statius’ phrasing, in which he associates a talking bird with the term conuicia in conjunction with a possessive genitive denoting a place (augusti … tecti, 2.4.15), is identical to Ovid's phrasing when he calls the Pierides-turned-magpies the ‘abuse of the woods’ (nemorum conuicia), after they have been punished by the Muses for challenging them to a singing contest. The similarity further encourages the metapoetic interpretation of the magpie in Petronius (Sat. 28.9) mentioned previously.Footnote 55
Like Petronius’ pica, Statius’ parrot greets people (and flatters Caesar) (ille salutator regum nomenque locutus | Caesareum ‘that greeter of kings and having spoken the name of Caesar’, 2.4.29–30), but like Ovid's magpies—and like Petronius himself—the parrot's flattery has a subversive and abusive edge. While Plutarch tells a vignette about Petronius’ flattery of Nero, in which Petronius ironically accuses Nero of being stingy (Mor. 60d–e), I agree with scholars who interpret Petronius’ words as thinly veiled mockery of the emperor.Footnote 56 Petronius’ subversive streak is also suggested by Tacitus’ reference to his ‘rather loose’ or ‘unfettered’ and ‘heedless’ words and deeds (dicta factaque eius … solutiora et quandam sui neglegentiam praeferentia, Ann. 16.18), as well as by his refusal to flatter Nero in his will and his decision to detail instead Nero's sexual flagitia (‘misdeeds’, Ann. 16.19). Thus, I disagree with Newlands, who argues that ‘Statius’ parrot does not … overstep the bounds of courtly behavior with dangerous speech’ and that ‘the parrot provides one model of courtly speech that is subservient; Lucan, praised at the end of Silvae 2, offers another model, of speech that was politically defiant and that ended in personal disaster’.Footnote 57 On the contrary, the parrot's screeching and complaining cage-doors and his conuicia might well represent defiant speech. The parrot's status as a subversive courtier is recapitulated a few lines down when his role as a flatterer is paired with his role as a ‘critical/complaining friend’ (queruli … amici, 2.4.30).Footnote 58
The emphasis on the complaints of the parrot prepares the reader for the shocking transformation of the parrot's domus into a beatus | carcer (‘rich prison’, 2.4.14–15), with carcer placed in initial position on the next line for maximum effect. Newlands’ note on this phrase registers appropriate surprise:
[A] harsh oxymoron: beatus means ‘rich’ (1.6.49) and also ‘fortunate’ (OLD 1) as the home of such a clever, pampered parrot. But carcer ‘prison’ is surprising; cavea is the common word for ‘birdcage’ (OLD 1a; cf. Petr. 28.9 cavea….aurea). Luc. 4.237 uses carcer of a wild animal's cage, Plin. Nat. 10.141 pejoratively of an aviary. The parrot's cage paradoxically represents both privilege and enslavement.Footnote 59
But carcer is precisely what Pliny the Elder deems the domus aurea in relation to the artist Fabullus (or Famulus): carcer eius artis domus aurea fuit (‘the domus aurea was the prison of his art’, HN 35.120), and it is easy to imagine that Petronius was also envisioned as living in this golden prison. Statius juxtaposes carcer not just to beatus but also to augusti … tecti (‘august dwelling’, 2.4.15), a description that has bothered critics because it is the same phrase used to describe Domitian's palace in Silv. 4.2.18.Footnote 60 But the phrase is a perfect way for Statius to reveal that the cage is in fact the palace of a former Augustus, and the cage's inhabitant the satiric flatterer/abuser (and prisoner) of that Augustus.
Statius’ depiction of the parrot's subversive speech, and particularly his similarity to Ovid's magpies, leads nicely into the next section, in which a group of ‘learned birds’ (doctae … aues, 2.4.16) is called together to learn a song in honour of the parrot (Silv. 2.4.16–21):
Let the learned birds to whom nature has granted the noble right of speech crowd around; let the bird of Phoebus beat its breast, and the starling capable of completely remembering words it has heard, and the magpies transformed in the Aonian contest, and the partridge who joins together and echoes repeated words, and the bereft sister who mourns in her Bistonian nest.
As Dietrich notes, several of these birds (the raven, magpie, partridge and nightingale) appear in Ovid's Metamorphoses and ‘figure in stories of transformation that result from a challenge to authority’.Footnote 61 Dietrich further notes that the only bird that does not appear in the Metamorphoses is the starling, but that this bird is one of the talking birds which Britannicus and Nero had trained (Plin. HN 10.120).Footnote 62 Thus, while Newlands argues that Statius’ parrot, with its ‘subservient speech and behavior’, forms a contrast with the ‘Ovidian birds who have been punished for misuse of their speech or their art’,Footnote 63 I would suggest just the opposite: Statius presents the parrot as one more bird/artist figure who has been punished for challenging authority (or simply being the better artist and inspiring jealousy).Footnote 64 Just as Ovid's magpies continue to hurl their abuse (conuicia, Met. 5.664) at the Muses after they are defeated in the singing contest (5.676–8), so Petronius refuses flattery of Nero at his death and instead informs of his sexual misdeeds (Ann. 16.19). Ovid, in turn, honours the Pierides in his description of their transformation into magpies that maintain both their spirit of conuicia (Met. 5.676) and their facundia prisca (‘former eloquence’, Met. 5.677). Similarly, Statius transforms Petronius into a parrot that combines eloquence ( facunda uoluptas, 2.4.1) with conuicia (2.4.15). Thus, when Statius asks the learned birds to ‘mourn together and lead the kindred death to the flames’ (ferte simul gemitus cognataque ducite flammis | funera, 2.4.22–3), he may be focussing not just on the fact that these birds are kindred in their ability to speak but also on the fact that they were all unjustly destroyed or transformed by jealous or tyrannical figures.Footnote 65
Finally, I would also add that the Phoebeius ales (or the corax ‘raven’), the pica and the soror orba (or philomela ‘nightingale’) are all characters in Petronius’ Satyrica: Fortunata is deemed a pica puluinaris in 37.7, while Corax (117.11) and Philomela (140.1) are named characters in other sections of the work. Just as Varro paired the discussion of literal aviaries in De re rustica 3 with a metaphorical collection of human ‘birds’ in his dialogue, with names like Merula, Pavo, Pica and Passer, and thus encouraged a three-way comparison between Rome, his dialogue and a literal aviary, perhaps Petronius inspired Statius’ own metapoetic parrot-poem by pairing a magpie (and parrot, if his parrot poem is from the Satyrica) in a golden cage with human ‘birds’ living out their lives in the cage of life that is Neronian Rome.Footnote 66
The song that Statius’ learned birds are asked to sing contains more possibly metapoetic birds (Silv. 2.4.24–8):
‘The parrot, the most distinguished glory of the airy race, has fallen, that green ruler of the Eastern region; whom neither the bird of Juno with its jewelled tail conquered in appearance, nor the bird of cold Phasis, nor the birds that the Numidians seized beneath the moist south wind. …'
Scholars have struggled to make symbolic sense of this selection of birds, namely the peacock, the pheasant and the guinea-fowl. Dietrich, building on van Dam's comments, suggests that these birds are linked by being ‘objects to be consumed—both visually and physically’ and ‘symbols of the wealth and extent of the empire’.Footnote 67 I agree and would also note that all of these birds appear in the Satyrica as luxury items that symbolize (too much) palate-pleasing decadence.Footnote 68 However, I would argue that the symbolism of these birds continues the metapoetic theme as well, and that they might represent the writers of epic who must yield, like the swans, to the Petronian parrot. In his tribute to Lucan, Statius lists, also in a song within a song, the writers of epic who must ‘yield’ (cedet, 2.7.75; cf. cedat Phaethontia uulgi fabula, 2.4.9–10) to Lucan: Ennius heads the list, followed by Lucretius, an unnamed writer of an Argonautica Footnote 69 and Ovid; even the Aeneid must pay homage (2.75–80). I would suggest that the peacock, pheasant and guinea-fowl could represent a similar list of epic poets. At the beginning of the Annales, Ennius famously recalls transforming into a peacock (fr. 11 Skutsch). Thus, perhaps Ennius qua peacock heads the list of Petronius’ epic rivals—a list that, like Lucan's, appropriately starts with the father of Roman epic. The ‘bird of Phasis’ is twice connected by Martial with the legend of the Argonauts (3.58.16, 13.72) and could easily call to mind a writer of an Argonautica—perhaps with the same ambiguity as in Silvae 2.7 about whether Varro of Atax or Valerius Flaccus is intended as the target. Finally, Martial 13.73 links the figure of Hannibal with Numidian guinea-fowl, which he calls Hannibal's ‘own birds’ (suas … aues, 13.73.2), and thus these birds could bring to mind the Punica of Silius Italicus. If Ovid's subversive birds pay tribute to Petronius as a fellow subversive (and parodic) poet in 2.4.16–21, perhaps the other birds, which are inferior to Petronius and constitute the fattened delicacies of the empire, represent more traditional epic writers who do not risk running afoul of their leaders.
Statius concludes his song within a song by giving a summary of the parrot's character and a description of its lavish funeral and metamorphosis (Silv. 2.4.29–37):
That greeter of kings, having spoken the name of Caesar and at one time having performed the role of critical friend, now a delightful dinner companion, so quick to return words that were taught; never were you alone when he was brought out, beloved Melior. But he is not sent to the shades inglorious: his ashes are burned with Assyrian spice, and his thin feathers breathe with Arabian herbs and Sicanian saffron; not tired from sluggish old age he will mount the fragrant fires as a happier phoenix.
I have already commented on the presentation of the parrot as both a flatterer of Caesar and a critic of him, as well as a delightful dinner-guest—a combination that suits Petronius well. I have also already commented on the sole appearance of Melior's name in the poem and how his communion with the parrot could metaphorically be accomplished by reading Petronius’ literature, which confers immortality on its author. The parrot's immortality is indeed the theme of the final lines, in which his elaborate funeral honours are imagined, as well as his metamorphosis into a Phoenix.Footnote 70 Thus, Statius grants his parrot-poet a metamorphosis in keeping with Ovid's own penchant for transforming artist figures into birds whose singing can live on. Perhaps the Phoenix also appealed to Statius not just as a model of a self-regenerating bird but as a bird that meticulously stages its own death and dies as it had lived, amid luxurious scents.Footnote 71
To conclude: Newlands has questioned ‘the assumption that book 2 is not concerned with political themes’ by arguing that ‘the book's emphasis on the virtues of withdrawal may well be a comment on current political conditions’.Footnote 72 I would add to this observation that Silvae 2 further comments on political conditions by alluding to specific subversive poets and imperial subjects, such as Ovid, Petronius and Lucan, who were all punished for their too-free speech and behaviour. Statius’ parrot-poem, then, is not (or is not just) an opportunity for Statius ‘to explore his own position as a poet in the contemporary political and literary scene’.Footnote 73 Statius’ own poetry is no doubt implicated in the poem's reflections on the nature of free speech under the empire. But on my reading, Silvae 2.4, like Silvae 2.7, is primarily a tribute to a writer of the previous generation, who boldly pushed the limits of what was allowed to an artist and member of the Imperial court and paid the ultimate price for doing so. Yet, Petronius’ writing—kept alive by readers like Melior and Statius—and Statius’ poetry provide the parrot with a measure of immortality.
