From Hellas with Love: The Aesthetics of Imitation in Aristaenetus’s Epistles

Combining general observations on Aristaenetus’s use of the epistolary medium, which serves to bridge the gulf between the author’s present and Hellas’s literary past, with a close reading of two epistles, my article investigates the aesthetics of imitation underlying this collection of amatory letters. I show how issues of artistic mimesis are treated both in the opening text (1.1), which programmatically reflects upon the style of Aristaenetus’s work, its imitative nature and the fictionality of his epistolary loves, and in Ep. 2.10, written by a painter in love with his own creation.