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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall;
Only the nightwind glides;
No crowds, no rebels, brawl.
Gone too, his Court; and yet,
The stars his courtiers are;
Stars in their stations set;
And every wandering star.
Lionel Johnson, By the Statue of King Charles at Charing CrossBut heaven this lasting monument has wrought,
That mortals may eternally be taught
Rebellion, though successful, is but vain,
And kings so killed rise conqueror again.
Edmund Waller, On the Statue of King Charles I, at Charing CrossThe Silvae open with a poem on a public monument that traditionally expresses a ruler's military might and majesty, the equestrian statue. The statue in question – a colossal equestrian statue of Domitian in bronze, which stood in the Roman Forum in honour of his German victories – no longer exists. But aside from Statius' poem we have a likely image of it on a sestertius minted at the end of Domitian's reign in ad 95–6, which depicts on the reverse an equestrian statue. Text and image coincide in showing the emperor in triumphal pose, dressed in armour, right hand prominently outstretched; the horse is checked from galloping off by its rider, who thus reveals his supreme control; a figure, which Statius tells us is an allegorical representation of the Rhine, crouches subjugated beneath the horse's hoof (50–1). The statue reveals the close association between the Flavian dynasty and military victory.
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