| Summary: | Atalanta’s speech, in which she refuses to let her son go against Thebes, is at the same time an interruption and a closure of the long catalogue of leaders in Thebaid’s book 4. The character replaces both her son and the enunciator of the catalogue. She appears to be a better warrior than her son, in a comparison developed with Virgil’s Camilla, of which she is a better substitute. Her speech also covers the voice of the enunciator of the catalogue, which is traditionally a closed place. Her identity as a woman and a warrior allows her to denunciate the weakness of her son and, more importantly, it is a way for Statius to say that a real heroism can’t exist in a war between brothers. Statius uses this woman's speech, situated in a strategic place of the epic, to express his ideological break with the tradition of the genre.
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