Commentary Purg XXI 125-126

The protagonist's understanding of Statius's debt to Virgil is obviously not yet fully developed.  In his formulation it was from the greater poet that Statius learned 'to sing of men and of the gods,' an adequate description of the work of a pagan writer of epic.  We will learn in the next canto that, behind the façade of pagan trappings, Statius was in fact a secret Christian.  See C.Purg.XXII.67-73.