'Qui dabit, ille tibi magno sit maior Homero'. Persistenza di un topos elegiaco nella precettistica ovidiana

The theme of avaritia muliebris, largely attested in Latin literature from comedy and Lucretius, plays an absolute role in love poetry; according to the elegiac authors, in particular, such a puella's fault assumes the proportions of a personal drama, because it undermines the ideal of simplicitas at the basis of their poetics. Love for money, gifts, and social prestige drives the woman to give her favors to traditional love poet's rivals (dives amator, soldier, political man) and to despise the love poet, usually poor. In the numerous attestations of Ovidian precepts, the usage of topos undergoes a change of sign not only in the transition from one work (Amores) to another (Ars; Remedia), but also depending on the interlocutors (the lena, the poet, the praeceptor amoris) and the didactic purposes.