The Villa and the Monument: Horace in Plin. Ep. 1.3

In letter 1.3 Pliny urges his friend Caninius Rufus to take advantage of the tranquillity of his villa near Comum to cultivate literary activity, for which (especially when it comes to poetry) he shows aptitude. This exhortation is reinforced by and embellished with intertextuality: in particular Pliny keeps in mind Hor. carm. 3.30. By alluding to this and other texts by Horace, Pliny builds an argument where the subject of posthumous memory is combined with that of the right to property. Unlike material goods – among them the villa – literary works are not passed on to heirs but forever remain the (intellectual) property of their authors.