Chapter 6 - Common Texts, (Un)Common Aesthetics

Summary

This chapter examines late antique, Greek and Latin centos from the perspective of the poets who wrote them and the authors who read them, with specific attention given to Ausonius’ preface and epilogue to his Cento Nuptialis, Aelia Eudocia’s prefatory poem to her Homeric Cento, and proem of Proba’s Vergilian cento. The scope of this chapter also includes other treatments of centos, in particular that of Jerome. My reading of these paratextual and critical moments of Greco-Roman cento authors and readers highlights recurring themes which clarify the various ways that appropriating ‘canonical’ texts to create a new whole was viewed. This chapter contributes to the scholarly conversations about literary ownership, textual unity, and notions of the sacred and the profane by situating these themes within the context of (re)using Homeric and Vergilian verse in Late Antiquity.