Tradizione comica e meccanismi di recupero nell’epistolografia fittizia di età imperiale: Aristofane in Eliano

Aelianus in his Epistulae plagiarises verbatim or with minor amendments phras- es, sentences, even paragraphs from earlier authors. This practice, of selecting a handful of ideas, words and phrases from one passage and then redeploying them in a new order and adapded context, can be seen most effectively in Aelianus’ exploitation of comedy as a source. This paper investigates a few interesting and uninvestigated techniques used by Aelianus in the manipulation of his sources and in the comic quotations in Epistulae.