Papinio Stazio e il monte Gaurus produttore di vino

In this article I focus on the presence of the Phlegrean mount Gaurus (close to Puteoli) in the Silvae of Statius. My purpose is to show that the Gaurus is mentioned by Statius not as a merely geographical place in a descriptive context of the Silvae, but the Gaurus refers to his Neapolitan patron Pollius Felix, who invested much of his wealth in estates and villas dedicated to wine production, and was probably responsible also for the project to transform the Gaurus in an area where wine was produced in a large scale. In this way, Pollius supported Domitian’s agricultural policy in favour of the Italian wine production, too, whilst Statius made use of the Gaurus to celebrate his patron through a wine producing mount just as Vergil celebrated Maecenas through the Massicus mount.