Prayer to Apollo

The opening of the unfinished Achilleid — two lines, and both concern the poet's own standing.

"Give me new springs, Phoebus" — new ones precisely, because the old have already been spent on the Thebaid. Statius is asking the god's leave to drink twice. And fronde secunda is "with favouring foliage", but also "with a second foliage": a second laurel for a second epic.

An address to the god of poetry turns out to be an application for advancement. For Domitian's court poet this is not cynicism but the ordinary frame: the success of a poem and the favour of the god are the same thing.

The Achilleid remained unfinished: Statius died before carrying it past the second book.