 From his boyhood he was victorious in poetic contests many times at his native Naples and three times at the Alban Festival, where he received the golden crown from the hand of the emperor Domitian who had instituted the contest.For the Alban Festival, Statius composed a poem on the German and Dacian campaigns of Domitian which Juvenal lampoons in his seventh satire.Statius is thought to have moved to Rome c. 90 after his father's death where he published his acclaimed epic poem the "Thebaid" c. 92.