I am getting this strange error and I cannot for the life of me figure out why:

    Cannot instantiate the type Image

CODE:

import java.awt.Image;

import org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer;
import org.newdawn.slick.Graphics;
import org.newdawn.slick.SlickException;
import org.newdawn.slick.state.BasicGameState;
import org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame;

public class MainMenuState extends BasicGameState {

    int stateID = -1;

    Image background = null;
    Image startGameOption = null;
    Image exitOption = null;

    float startGameScale = 1;
    float exitScale = 1;
    MainMenuState( int stateID ) 
    {
       this.stateID = stateID;
    }


    public int getID() {
        return stateID;
    }

    public void init(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg) throws SlickException {
        try {

        background = new Image("data/menu.jpg");

        Image menuOptions = new Image("data/menuoptions.png");

        startGameOption = menuOptions.getSubImage(0, 0, 377, 71);

        exitOption = menuOptions.getSubImage(0, 71, 377, 71);

        }catch (SlickException e) {
            System.err.print(e);
        }
    }

    public void render(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, Graphics g) throws SlickException {

    }

    public void update(GameContainer gc, StateBasedGame sbg, int delta) throws SlickException {

    }

}

Why do I get this error? I've googled endlessly and nobody else has it, this worked fine in my other game. Any ideas?