This thesis traces the development of the theme of kinship and posits that it is connected to the virtue of pietas in the Latin epics of Vergil, Ovid, and Statius. In the Aeneid, the theme of kinship operates on two complementary levels: the literary and narrative. Even as the nature of pietas becomes more problematic in the narrative, so also Vergils devotion to his literary forefathers diminishes as the epic develops. In the Metamorphoses, Ovid responds to Vergils use of kinship by focusing on the taboos of incest and familial violence. Ovid shows that these two transgressions of pietas represent narrative progress and composition while also symbolizing different modes of poetic allusion. Statius epic rewrites these two earlier epics, simultaneously undermining the ethical system of the Aeneid and calling into question Ovids claim of literary immortality at the end of the Metamorphoses.