Luke Roman argues that poets in ancient Rome employed a distinctive 'rhetoric of autonomy' and represented their poetry as different from other cultural products and social relations. Looking closely at the works of famous Roman poets, he offers fresh insights into ancient literary texts and the dialogue between ancient and modern aesthetics.

In Poetic Autonomy in Ancient Rome, Luke Roman offers a major new approach to the study of ancient Roman poetry. A key term in the modern interpretation of art and literature, 'aesthetic autonomy' refers to the idea that the work of art belongs to a realm of its own, separate from ordinary activities and detached from quotidian interests. While scholars have often insisted that aesthetic autonomy is an exclusively modern concept and cannot be applied to other historical periods, the book argues that poets in ancient Rome employed a 'rhetoric of autonomy' to define their position within Roman society and establish the distinctive value of their work. This study of the Roman rhetoric of poetic autonomy includes an examination of poetic self-representation in first-person genres from the late republic to the early empire. Looking closely at the works of Lucilius, Catullus, Propertius, Horace, Virgil, Tibullus, Ovid, Statius, Martial, and Juvenal, Poetic Autonomy in Ancient Rome affords fresh insight into ancient literary texts and reinvigorates the dialogue between ancient and modern aesthetics.

Luke Roman argues that poets in ancient Rome employed a distinctive 'rhetoric of autonomy' and represented their poetry as different from other cultural products and social relations. Looking closely at the works of famous Roman poets, he offers fresh insights into ancient literary texts and the dialogue between ancient and modern aesthetics.

Lays of Ancient Rome is a collection of narrative poems, or lays, which recount heroic episodes from early Roman history with strong dramatic and tragic themes, giving the collection its name. The first poem, Horatius, describes how PubliusHoratius and two companions, SpuriusLartius and Titus Herminius, hold the Sublician bridge, the only span crossing the Tiber at Rome, against the Etruscan army of Lars Porsena, King of Clusium. The next poem, The Battle of Lake Regillus, celebrates the Roman victory over the Latin League at the Battle of Lake Regillus. The poem Virginia describes the tragedy of Virginia, the only daughter of Virginius, a poor Roman farmer. The Prophecy of Capys narrates how when Romulus and Remus arrive in triumph at the house of their grandfather, Capys, the blind old man enters a prophetic trance.