Abstract
Prop. 3.14 seems to take its main motif from a subgenre of Hellenistic erotic literature, the same on wich Athenaeus also drew for sections of Deipn. 13. This subgenre seems to be the source of the fictional epistolary exchange between Menander and Glycera in Alciphron and the Hellenistic fragment in hexameters in SH 495. This erotic production focused on the relationships between famous Athenian characters and some courtesans. This characterization of these lovers′ figures exhibits striking similarities with the Roman elegists′ representation of love, and many considerations suggest that Roman elegists drew extensively on this Hellenistic subgenre of erotic literature.
Another genre which in my view influenced Roman elegy was mime. F. Leo had already noted numerous points of contact between Attic comedy and elegy. I would like to suggest that the influence of Attic comedy on elegy can be best explained by positing the mediation of mime. Tib. 1.2 and Prop. 2.23 can certainly be read as mimes.
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