‘Et latet et lucet:’ Ovidian Intertextuality and the Aesthetics of Luxury in Martial’s Poetry

This article emphasizes the importance of Ovid’s poetry as a precedent on a theoretical level, as well as a literary model, for the ‘celebration of modernity’ and of the achievements of wealth and even luxury that are praised by Statius’ and Martial’s occasional poems. The aestheticization of everyday life that marks the Flavian elite, especially through the artefacts of material culture, is largely based on myth, that is allusively evoked by references to Ovid’s major poem. This phenomenon of aestheticization fosters a sort of global intertextuality, in keeping with a society characterized by the multiplication of copies of artworks.