This book offers an appraisal of both the panegyric poems of Statius written for Domitian, and of their place in the context of imperial panegyric as a whole. For a variety of reasons, these poems, the Silvae, which are included in Statius' collection of occasional poems, have been largely ignored or misread by scholars who fail to see the literary techniques employed by Statius. In an attempt to understand these techniques and to appreciate Statius' handling of them, this study focuses on Silvae 1.1, the opening poem in the collection, commemorating the dedication of an equestrian statue to the emperor.