Non subripiendi causa sed palam mutuandi: Intertextuality and Literary Deviancy between Law, Rhetoric, and Literature in Roman Imperial Culture

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.