After the Augustan age, new critical perspectives are exerted on the relationship between light
and epic poetry. While composing his epos, Statius is dubious about publishing the Siluae. He
ends up with labelling his lighter poetry as remissio and praelusio, as an ideal prologue to the
Thebaid; nevertheless the Musa tenuis (now embracing either nugae or some kinds of carmina
docta as epithalamia and epyllia), approached in the past by a canon of oustanding poets, has
proved to be able to achieve glory per se. Martial and Pliny develop further oppositions, the latter
matching, on some occasions, Statius’ view of light poetry: their remarks on and exploitation of
the motif of dulcedo is a particularly notable point of contact between the two.
