THE INCOMPLETE FORM in which the Achilleid has come to us renders moot any discussion of the shape and tone of the epic as it might have been com pleted.1 For better or worse, the first book is the only one that may reasonably be studied with any coherence.2 Critical endeavor need not, however, be limited. Responding to the influence of the Hellenistic poets so important to the litera ture of his day, Statius provides material in which bucolic and elegiac as well as epic elements of great refinement are to be found.3 The poet of the Achilleid