Un cavallo nell’Elisio (Auson. Epigr. 7 Green)

Abstract

Composed on imperial commission, the elegant verse epitaph for the racehorse Phosphorus is an outstanding example of Ausonius’ poetic memory and a sophisticated essay of his technique of allusion. The three main models that innervate the text – two epigrams by Martial and a passage from Nemesianus’ Cynegetica – are signalised through three distinct references or ‘quotations’ concentrated in the first line, which sums up the ‘intertextual project’ of the poem. The paper aims to describe this feature of the epigram in detail; the analysis is completed by a fresh attempt to correct the scribal error that affects the last line of the text in the unique manuscript.