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The Lullingstone Mosaic Inscription — A Parody of Martial?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2016

S.R. Cosh
S.R. Cosh*
Affiliation:
Ash Vale, Surrey stephencosh675@btinternet.com
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Abstract

The original poem inscribed above an image of Europa and the bull on the Lullingstone villa mosaic has long been recognised as referring to an episode in Ovid's Metamorphoses and making an allusion to Virgil's Aeneid. Here it is proposed that it is also a parody of a poem by Martial on the same subject and adds to the growing quantity of classical literature with which the fourth-century Romano-British elite are known to have been familiar.

Keywords

Lullingstone villamosaicinscriptionMartialVirgilOvid
Type
Shorter Contributions
Information
Britannia , Volume 47 , November 2016 , pp. 262 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2016. Published by The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 

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References

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