grounds. Since then assurances of a satisfactory kind have been given to the German government that their servants would be in no way committed to any course disapproved by that government if they gave their assistance to the Institute, from the formation of which it is hoped that much advantage may result. For information as to the constitution and objects of the Institute reference may be made to a paper by the late Dr F. X. von Neumann-Spallart in vol. i. (1886) of the Bulletin de l’institut international de statistique (Rome, 1886). Meetings of the Institute have been held annually ever since its formation in various cities of the world.
Literature.—E. Blaschke, Vorlesungen über mathematische Statistik (die Lehre von den statistischen Masszahlen) (Leipzig and Berlin, 1906); Maurice Block, Traité théorique et pratique de statistique (Paris, 1878); Luigi Bodio, Della Statistica nei suoi rapporti coll’ economia politica, &c. (Milan, 1869); Arthur L. Bowley, Elements of Statistics (London, 1901); J. Conrad, " Statistik," Grundriss zum Studieren der politischen Oekonomie, vierter Teil; (2nd ed., Jena, 1902) (vierter Teil); Elderton (W. Palin and Ethel M.), Primer of Statistics (London, 1910); F. Faure, Eléments de statistique (Paris, 1906); A. Gabaglio, Storia e teoria della statistica (Milan, 1880); Max Haushofer, Lehr- und Handbuch der Statistik (2nd ed., Vienna, 1882); K. Knies, Die Statistik als selbständige Wissenschaft (Cassel, 1850); A. Liesse, La Statistique (Paris, 1905); R. Mayo-Smith, Science of Statistics (1895); G. von Mayr, Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben (Munich, 1877), abridged translation in Journ. Roy. Stat. Soc. (Sept. 1883); idem, Statistik und Gesellschaftslehre, pts. i. and ii. (Freiburg, 1897); A. Meitzen, Geschichte, Theorie und Technik der Statistik (2nd ed., Stuttgart and Berlin, 1903); A. Quetelet, various works, but especially that entitled Sur l'homme et le développement de ses facultés, ou Essai de physique sociale (Paris, 1837); and Letters on the Theory of Probability; idem, Lettres à s.a.r. le duc regnant de Saxe-Coburg et Gotha sur la théorie des probabilités (Brussels, 1846); A. C. F. Schäffle, Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers (Tübingen, 1881), especially pt. ii. pp. 463 seq., and pt. iv. pp. 493 sqq.; Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology (London, 1877), especially pt. ii. p. 465 seq.; A. Wagner, article " Statistik," in Buntschli-Brater's Staatswörterbuch, vol. x.; H. Westergaard, Die Grundzüge der Theorie der Statistik (Jena, 1890). (W. Ho.)
STATIUS, PUBLIUS PAPINIUS (c. A.D. 45–96), Latin poet, was born at Naples. He was, to a great extent, devoted by birth and training to the profession of a poet. The Statii were of Graeco-Campanian origin, and were of gentle extraction, though impoverished, and the family records were not without political distinctions. The poet's father taught with marked success at Naples and Rome, and from boyhood to age he proved himself a champion in the poetic tournaments which formed an important part of the amusements of the early empire. The younger Statius declares that his father was in his time equal to any literary task, whether in prose or verse. Probably the poet inherited a modest competence and was not under the necessity of begging his bread from wealthy patrons. He certainly wrote poems to order (as Silvae, i. 1, 2, ii. 7, and iii. 4), but there is no indication that the material return for them was important to him, in spite of an allusion in Juvenal's seventh satire. Of events in the life of Statius we know little. From his boyhood he was victorious in poetic contests,—many times at his native city Naples, thrice at Alba, where he received the golden crown from the hand of the emperor Domitian. But at the great Capitoline competition (probably on its third celebration in 94 a.d.) Statius failed to win the coveted chaplet of oak leaves. No doubt the extraordinary popularity of his Thebais had led him to regard himself as the supreme poet of the age, and when he could not sustain this reputation in the face of rivals from all parts of the empire he accepted the judges' verdict as a sign that his day was past, and retired to Naples, the home of his ancestors and of his own young years. We still possess the poem he addressed to his wife on this occasion (Silv. iii. 5). There are hints in this poem which naturally lead to the surmise that Statius was suffering from a loss of the emperor's favour; he may have felt that a word from Domitian would have won for him the envied garland, and that the word ought to have been given. In the preface to book iv. of the Silvae there is mention of detractors who hated our poet's style, and these may have succeeded in inducing a new fashion in poetry at court. Such an eclipse, if it happened, must have cut Statius to the heart. He appears to have relished thoroughly the role of
court-poet. The statement sometimes made that the elder Statius had been the emperor's teacher, and had received many favours from him, so that the son inherited a debt of gratitude,
seems to have no solid foundation. Statius lauds the emperor,
not to discharge a debt, but rather to create an obligation.
His flattery is as far removed from the gentle propitiatory tone
of Quintilian as it is from the coarse and crawling humiliation
of Martial. It is in the large extravagant style of a nature in
itself healthy and generous, which has accepted the theme and
left scruples behind. In one of his prefatory epistles Statius
declares that he never allowed any work of his to go forth
without invoking the godhead of the divine emperor. Statius
had taken the full measure of Domitian's gross taste, and,
presenting him with the rodomontade which he loved, puts
conscience and sincerity out of view, lest some uneasy twinge
should mar his master's enjoyment. But in one poem, that in
which the poet pays his due for an invitation to the Imperial
table, we have sincerity enough. Statius clearly feels all the
raptures he expresses. He longs for the power of him who told
the tale of Dido's banquet, and for the voice of him who sang
the feast of Alcinous, that he may give forth utterance worthy
of the lofty theme. The poet seemed, he says, to dine with
great Jove himself and to receive nectar from Ganymede the cup-
bearer (an odious reference to the imperial favourite Earinus).
All his life hitherto has been barren and profitless. Now only
has he begun to live in truth. The palace struck on the poet's
fancy like the very hall of heaven; nay, Jove himself marvels at
its beauty, but is glad that the emperor should possess such an
earthly habitation; he will thus feel less desire to seek his
destined abode among the immortals in the skies. Yet even so
gorgeous a palace is all too mean for his greatness and too small
for his vast presence. “But it is himself, himself, that my eager
eye has alone time to scan. He is like a resting Mars or Bacchus
or Alcides.” Martial too swore that, were Jove and Domitian
both to invite him to dinner for the same day, he would prefer
to dine with the greater potentate on the earth. Martial and
Statius were no doubt supreme among the imperial flatterers.
Each was the other's only serious rival. It is therefore not
surprising that neither should breathe the other's name. Even
if we could by any stretch excuse the bearing of Statius towards
Domitian, he could never be forgiven the poem entitled "The
Hair of Flavius Earinus," Domitian's Ganymede (Silv. iii. 4),
a poem than which it would be hard to find a more repulsive
example of real poetical talent defiled for personal ends. Every-
thing points to the conclusion that Statius did not survive his
emperor—that he died, in fact, a short time after leaving Rome
to settle in Naples. Apart from the emperor and his minions,
the friendships of Statius with men of high station seem to have
been maintained on fairly equal terms. He was clearly the
poet of society in his day as well as the poet of the court.
As poet, Statius unquestionably shines in many respects when compared with most other post-Augustans. He was born with
exceptional talent, and his poetic expression is, with all its faults, richer on the whole and less forced, more buoyant and more felicitous, than is to be found generally in the Silver Age of Latin poetry. Statius is at his best in his occasional verses, the Silvae, which have a character of their own, and in their best parts a charm of their own. The title was proper to verses of rapid workmanship, on everyday themes. Statius prided himself on his powers of improvisation, and he seems to nave been quite equal to the feat, which Horace describes, of dictating two hundred lines in an hour while standing on one leg. The improvisatore was in high honour among the later Greeks, as Cicero's speech for the poet Archias indicates; and the poetic contests common in the early empire did much to stimulate ability of the kind. It is to their velocity that the poems owe their comparative freshness and freedom, along with their loose texture and their inequality. There are thirty-two poems, divided into five books, each with a dedicatory epistle. Of nearly four thousand lines which the books contain, more than five-sixths are hexameters. Four of the pieces (containing about 450 lines) are written in the hendecasyllabic metre, the “tiny metre of Catullus,” and there is one Alcaic and one Sapphic ode. The subjects of the Silvae are very various. Five poems are devoted to flattery of the emperor and his favourites; but of these enough has already been said. Six are lamentations for deaths, or consolations to survivors. Statius seems to have felt a special pride in this class of his productions; and certainly, notwithstanding the excessive and conventional employment of pretty mythological pictures, with other affectations, he sounds notes of pathos