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from Part IV - Pliny’s Villas and Their Poetic Models
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2023
This chapter argues that Pliny’s description of his Tuscan villa (Ep. 5.6) engages in a complex intertext with Statius’ villa descriptions in the Silvae (1.3 and 2.2). The intertext involves Pliny recognizing and ‘correcting’ Statius’ combinatorial appropriation of Lucretius and Vergil’s Georgics. Statius alludes to the concept of nature in Lucretius and Vergil in order to justify his (polemical) celebration of the domination of nature by positioning it within the didactic tradition. In doing so Statius is able to praise the extravagance of his patrons and their villas. Chinn argues that Pliny acknowledges and elaborates this intertext by ‘correcting’ Statius’ Lucretian allusion and thereby positioning himself as the controller of nature and hence the object of praise.
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