American Journal of Philology

This article argues that Statius Siluae 1.6 may be understood as an enactment of the politics of freedom in Flavian Rome. In describing Saturnalia and praising the emperor simultaneously, the poem engages with two different types of rhetoric and employs figurative language in an attempt to reconcile the two. Nevertheless, the literal meanings of these figures of speech come into play in the poem. In several instances analyzed here, the various ways of understanding libertas come into conflict. This literary conflict of figurative language reenacts the political contestation over the meaning of libertas at Rome.