Conclusion

The conclusion offers some final thoughts on the question pursued in this monograph, namely the Greek novelists’ engagement with Latin poetry, and what this means for how we model Graeco-Roman relations in the imperial period. It summarizes the findings of Chapters 1–7 and places them side by side in a way that clarifies how the different novelists approach the institution of Latin literature. At least for the three authors in question (Chariton, Achilles Tatius, Longus), the approach to Latin poetry is systematic rather than piecemeal. Allusion to Latin poetry is often playful, and occasionally ideological and potentially subversive (for example, Longus and the Aeneid). The conclusion also addresses the sociological problem of Greek imperial engagement with Latin literature: Greek literary men of the first two centuries CE were, it is suggested, habituated to practices that ensured the preservation of the Greek literary system as it stood. Failure to acknowledge the existence of a Latin poetic tradition in an overt manner served as one way of controlling the literary system.