There are many other themes beside landscape painting in which the _Silvae_ of Statius challenge comparison with the epigrams of Martial. Both use the same servile flattery to the emperor, both celebrate the same patrons,[666] both console their noble friends for the loss of relatives, or favourite slaves; both write _propemptica_. Even in the most trivial of these poems, those addressed to the emperor, Statius is easily surpassed by his humbler rival. His inferiority lies largely in the fact that he is more ambitious. He wrote on a larger scale. When the infinitely trivial is a theme for verse, the epigrammatist has the advantage of the author of the more lengthy _Silvae_. Perfect neatness vanquishes dexterous elaboration. Moreover, if taste can be said to enter into such poems at all, Martial errs less grossly. Even Domitian--one might conjecture--may have felt that Statius' flattery was 'laid on with a trowel'. Martial may have used the same instrument, but had the art to conceal it.[667] There are even occasions where his flattery ceases to revolt the reader, and where we forget the object of the flattery. In a poem describing the suicide of a certain Festus he succeeds in combining the dignity of a funeral _laudatio_ with the subtlest and most graceful flattery of the princeps: indignas premeret pestis cum tabida fauces, inque suos voltus serperet atra lues, siccis ipse genis flentes hortatus amicos decrevit Stygios Festus adire lacus. nec tamen obscuro pia polluit ora veneno aut torsit lenta tristia fata fame, sanctam Romana vitam sed morte peregit dimisitque animam nobiliore via. hanc mortem fatis magni praeferre Catonis fama potest; huius Caesar amicus erat (i. 78). When the dire quinsy choked his guiltless breath, And o'er his face the blackening venom stole, Festus disdained to wait a lingering death, Cheered his sad friends and freed his dauntless soul. No meagre famine's slowly-wasting force, Nor hemlock's gradual chillness he endured, But like a Roman chose the nobler course, And by one blow his liberty secured. His death was nobler far than Cato's end, For Caesar to the last was Festus' friend. HODGSON (slightly altered). The unctuous dexterity of Statius never achieved such a master-stroke. So, too, in laments for the dead, the superior brevity and simplicity of Martial bear the palm away. Both poets bewailed the death of Glaucias, the child favourite of Atedius Melior. Statius has already been quoted in this connexion; Martial's poems on the subject,[668] though not quite among his best, yet ring truer than the verse of Statius. And Martial's epitaphs and epicedia at their best have in their slight way an almost unique charm. We must go to the best work of the Greek Anthology to surpass the epitaph on Erotion (v. 34):