The Rhetoric of the Roman Fake
Latin Pseudepigrapha in Context

An in-depth analysis of Roman literary fakes offering new insights into the creative dynamics of spurious literature.

Irene Peirano (Author)

9781107000735, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 August 2012

322 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.2 cm, 0.64 kg

'… well worth reading. Peirano has a keen eye for detail, especially for intertextual parallels, which she interprets ingeniously. Everyone interested in the (unduly) unpopular texts that are the subject of this book can profit from Peirano's close readings. Peirano's discussion of the cultural background of the fake is both well-informed and original.' Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Previous scholarship on classical pseudepigrapha has generally aimed at proving issues of attribution and dating of individual works, with little or no attention paid to the texts as literary artefacts. Instead, this book looks at Latin fakes as sophisticated products of a literary culture in which collaborative practices of supplementation, recasting and role-play were the absolute cornerstones of rhetorical education and literary practice. Texts such as the Catalepton, the Consolatio ad Liviam and the Panegyricus Messallae thus illuminate the strategies whereby Imperial audiences received and interrogated canonical texts and are here explored as key moments in the Imperial reception of Augustan authors such as Virgil, Ovid and Tibullus. The study of the rhetoric of these creative supplements irreverently mingling truth and fiction reveals much not only about the neighbouring concepts of fiction, authenticity and reality, but also about the tacit assumptions by which the latter are employed in literary criticism.

Introduction
1. Literary fakes and their ancient reception
2. Constructing the young Virgil: the Catalepton as pseudepigraphic literature
3. Poets and patrons: Catalepton 9, the Panegyricus Messallae, the Laus Pisonis and the pseudo-panegyric
4. Prefiguring Virgil: the Ciris
5. Recreating the past: the Consolatio ad Liviam and Elegiae in Maecenatem
Epilogue. Towards a rhetoric of the Roman fake: the Helen episode in Aeneid 2.

Subject Areas: Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], Literature & literary studies [D]