Statius was not born in Toulouse, as Dante supposes, but in Naples, as he himself states in his Silvae , which work was not discovered till after Dante’s death. The passage occurs in Book III Eclogue V , To Claudia his Wife , where he describes the beauties of Parthenope, and calls her the mother and nurse of both, amborum genetrix altrixque .

Landino thinks that Dante’s error may be traced to Placidus Lactantius, a commentator of the Thebaid , who confounded Statius the poet of Naples with Statius the rhetorician of Toulouse. ↩

Would be willing to remain another year in Purgatory. ↩