Abstract
The literary forerunners of Rutilius Namatianus’ De reditu suo, are well-known but offer no rationale for this writer’s use of elegiacs in the narrative of his journey back home. This journey from Ostia to Gaul could well be more than a mere personal account - what if it were a katabasis in disguise, a trip from the land of the living to the afterworld fraught with danger every step of the way? This may account for the Virgilian allusions to the Underworld; the De reditu suo in the historical context of a triumphant Christianity is, furthermore, a farewell to Roman paideia and a eulogy to a vanishing world. As he celebrates what used to be, Rutilius hopes and is confident it will return. But these are no longer the epic times of an expanding empire: hence, his choice of the elegiac metre over hexameter and the nostalgic tone of his poem. [Author]
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