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Si cerca di restituire le lezione genuina di un passo di Pomponio Mela. An attempt is made to convey the genuine lesson of a passage by Pomponio Mela.

Recent scholars rightly believe that the fifteen poems transmitted under the title "Catalepton" and attributed to Virgil are 'pseudepigrapha', which were deliberately com- posed to appear as a youthful work by him. However, direct connections with Virgil are only present in some poems (1, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15) and are missing in others (2, 3, 6, 10, 12, 13), which instead refer, often polemically, to other people. The article argues that this latter series of poems may have initially circulated anonymously and only later been attributed to Virgil. The other poems, whose author clearly wears Virgil’s mask, interact with these texts, and were perhaps composed from them. Therefore, the poems of "Catalepton" hardly appear to have all been written by the pen of a single author.

We try to demonstrate that the so-called "Epistula Annae ad Senecam" derives from a Jewish environment. Furthermore, an attempt is made to heal some corrupted points in the text.

A detailed analysis of the scholiastic material relating to Ar. Av. 299-300 shows not only that the entire scholium is ascribable to the grammarian Didymus, but also that the ancient interpretation of the Aristophanic line implied several reception dynamics: firstly, the influence played on Euphronius’ dialectological exegesis by the allusion to Alcman’s poem on the bird named kērylos in ll. 250-252 of the Birds; secondly, the reuse of zoological writings and, possibly, of Callimachus’ Aitia in Didymus’ explanation of the pun on the ornithonym kērylos.

Heroes are the first paradeigmata, for everyone, even for philosophers. Their most important virtue is tlemosyne, i.e. the ability to choose and resist in the face of dangers and difficulties. But the will has some more problems. Heroes have to deal with the gods and with Fate, that is, with the Moirai and their own destiny. Heracles, the greatest of all heroes, performs the well known labours in the service of Eurystheus, by the will of the gods. Aegisthus, Clytemestra’s lover and Agamemnon’s killer, is the negative model: he indeed chose what he wanted, but then he becomes the model of hybris. Agamemnon is the commander-in-chief of the Achaeans. But in the events of the war, he reveals all his errors of inadequate will. Achilles, the strongest warrior of the Trojan War, chooses between life and death and then regrets his choice when it is too late. Odysseus, the hero of metis, is perhaps the only one who knows how to choose the paths of the will. Certainly, with many risks and suffering. But this is the virtue of tlemosyne.

This note presents the summary and the analysis of citations, allusions and references to Plautus’s comedies in «The Last Days of Pompeii» by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. From the analysis here conducted it emerges that the English writer used Plautus for precise purposes, for ironic and satirical resolutions, appropriately contextualizing the allusions to Plautus within the plot of the novel.

The aim of the present doctoral thesis is to investigate the presence of the character Achilles in the Latin Literature of the Imperial Age. Moving from Catullus? Carmen LXIV up to Dracontius? Carmina profana, the figure of Achilles is analysed as specimen of Homer?s fortune inside and out of the epic genre; the recurrent ambition of Roman writers to compete with Homer?s authority by giving birth to a ?Latin Iliad? leads to the frequent characterisation of Achilles as promise of a great poetic enterprise up to come. The conventional association of the Trojan War with its most celebrated symbol involves the demonization and de-heroicization of Achilles. On the other hand, there are some counterfactual reflections on his destructive potential as enemy of the Roman people (for killing their ancestor Aeneas).