Fake intellectuals and books of unquestionable authority in Aulus Gellius’s Noctes Atticae and Lucian’s aduersus Indoctum

This paper will explore how the material text operates as a literary motif in the self-consciously learned writings of the second century CE. By focusing on the function and significance of the book roll in Aulus Gellius' Noctes Atticae and Lucian's aduersus Indoctum, I will demonstrate how both works partake in a shared set of concerns about the physical book arising from their shared cultural milieu, rather than any direct intertextual relationships. Building on recent scholarly work on imperial reading practices, I hope to give a fuller treatment to the symbolic values of the book roll per se, which inform both Latin and Greek thought in the second century CE.

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