Ricerc@Sapienza

The chapter deals with the knowledge and use of Latin models by Greek poets of the III-VI centuries AD (, focusing on some methodological aspects of the question. Closer examination of the passages of Greek poets, where imitations and allusions to Latin poets (especially Virgil and Ovid) have been recurrently suggested by modern scholars, turns out to be inconclusive, and in many cases seems to be more reasonable to come back to the old theory of the ‘lost Hellenistic common model’. I suggest that we should always observe the fundamental distinction between the knowledge of Latin language and literature and the conscious imitation of Latin authors by poets deeply indebted with the Greek tradition and usually without any real need to turn to Latin. Indeed, in the difficulty of drawing a clear distinction between knowledge and conscious imitation lies one of the crucial issues of the question. Another one is the competence of the audience and its ability of recognizing translinguistic imitation. Moreover, apart from other considerations such as the prestige of tradition, and a certain disdain for Latin, the contemporary audience perceived the two literary systems as radically different, as the study of metrical inscriptions points out.