“The primal age, which was as fair as gold, with hunger made the acorn delicate, and every brook with thirst a nectar hold”
. . . . .
Excessive spending is portrayed as being the other side of the coin from covetous hoarding—the ideal being moderation. Statius would have lived during Emperor Domitian’s persecution of Christians in the late first century, and his reluctance to identify publicly with his faith is portrayed as a form of insufficient zeal, or sloth. Like Virgil, most of the famous classical authors are placed in Limbo, the least punitive level of Hell—meaning that though they were virtuous, they didn’t possess Christian grace.