The name heading a text signifies a pledge of responsibility for the content. Even when the author is not part of the narrative proper, references to his/her name do more than supply factual information. Though ultimately the author is only what readers make him/her to be, s/he is nevertheless a powerful and important figure of reading or understanding that is activated to some extent in all texts. Thus the author’s name is as much part of a text and of our (...) understanding of it as the content itself and yet it is strangely ‘paratextual’, straddling the text and the world outside it. This chapter looks at how ancient authorial ascriptions function as paratexts—focussing on the kind of authority they claim for the text, and how that authority may in some cases be faked. The chapters considers, in particular, sphragides—closing authorial statements in Roman poets—and the authorial voices they express. (shrink)

This article explores the use of imagery drawn from the legal sphere to describe intertextual relations in Roman culture, drawing attention to the interconnected nature of contemporary debates on ownership and private property in law and literary criticism. Taking as my starting point a remark by Seneca the Elder on Ovid’s “borrowing” of Virgil’s text ( Suas. 3.3), I show how the distinction often invoked between legitimate imitation and literary theft is explained by a deep-seated and multi-faceted analogy between literary (...) and legal judgment. Moreover, I show how the use of legal metaphors derives special meaning from the context of Seneca’s work, in which readers are asked to judge both the legal and the literary merits of the cases presented. (shrink)