‘Otium’ rustico: stilizzazione letteraria e strategie allusive nell’epistolografia fittizia di età imperiale

The unacknowledged exploitation of material from earlier literature appears to have been considered an inalienable feature of the genre of imaginary and imaginative letters right from the beginning. Aelian’s Rustic Letters, written at the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, expropriate incidents, vivid phrases or even whole passages, and character names from a variety of earlier autors. His first letter offers an interesting example of the expansion and diffusion of some topoi peculiar to the Greek and Latin literary praise of the countryside. Aelian Epist. 7 and 8 are an imaginary exchange between a naive rustic Derkyllos and a greedy hetaira Opora who rejects his advances. Aelian’s two letters of Opora and Derkyllos might have derived some of their ideas from Alexis’ lost Opora.