Abstract
Can we find the flâneur in ancient Rome? This is not a narrow question of whether this modern French literary figure has a Classical prehistory, but whether there is a parallel relationship at Rome between large urban centres, literary production, and individualism. This chapter suggests there are instances in Latin love elegy that offer a layered response to spatial forms. Observing the rhythms of the everyday in Rome, we discover shared spaces of erotic and imperial power. Propertius and Ovid are as much constructors of the eternal city as its monumental imperial builders. It is in fleeting and intense moments of escape that we become aware of the inflexibility of everyday life in Rome. In the moments when the citizen may (or may not) give way to the lover, the limitations of set scripts are revealed, and the implacable logic of imperial space softens in the undecidability of the moment.
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