Silvae

The Silvae of Statius have been preserved in one very corrupt fifteenth-century manuscript; in this new Oxford Classical Text, Professor Courtney takes the view, held by Klotz alone among editors but strongly supported by recent discoveries of new material, that this manuscript was identicalwith that seen by Politian. The difficulties are compounded by the author's mannerist style, which most modern editors have often misinterpreted as a defence for corrupt readings. For this text the editor has surveyed the scholarly literature on the Silvae in its entirety, and has often returned tothe judgements of the great seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Latinists in an effort to produce a readable text that does not ignore any difficulties.