Abstract

A. W. Verrall considers rightly that the scene at Thebaid I 2. 481 ff. is ‘the cardinal point of the whole poem’. I hope to show that Statius has portrayed the goddess Clementia as a force which functions in a way very different from that which his readers would expect from their experience of the usage of the word clementia and that his new portrayal is closely related to a theme of the poem. I shall suggest that his redefinition of the concept was inspired by the political situation in which he found himself. The Altar of Mercy focuses Statius' thoughts on the position of man in the universe and of the individual in society, and coming as it does after eleven books of disaster offers some comfort to man in his suffering. Statius is concerned in the Thebaid with man as a tragic victim, and the Altar of Mercy affords him comfort precisely in that area in which he most seeks it.