The present study moves away from the narrow focus on authenticity and attribution that has traditionally characterized the study of pseudepigrapha, and investigates the cultural function of the fake through in-depth analysis of selected texts from Latin literature. The dissertation focuses on works which purport to be the work of the author to which they became ascribed or which purport to be written at a time different from that in which they were composed. I argue that authorial impersonations are "creative supplements" which take their cues from questions debated by readers and seek to fill the gaps in the literary career of an author. I read authorial impersonations against the background of ancient discussions of the author impersonated and argue that they work as creative commentaries on the persona of their assumed author and should therefore be studied as "reception texts". This theory is illustrated with reference to the pseudo-Virgilian Catalepton, which, it is argued, addresses problems and provides answers to questions that were current in the reception of Virgil from the years following his death down to the time of Servius.

The Ciris and the Culex illustrate a different but related type of authorial impersonation where the allusions to the master-author, in this case Virgil, are aimed not so much at supporting a fictional biography, but at prefiguring the poetry of the master-author's mature years. The idea of the fake as a "creative supplement" is further illustrated with reference to the pseudo-Tibullan Panegyricus Messallae and the anonymous Laus Pisonis, both of which feature young poets requesting the financial support of two famous patrons, respectively Messalla Corvinus and Gaius Calpurnius Piso, but were demonstrably written after their deaths. The panegyrics, I argue, have their roots not in real life, but in the rhetorical tradition of composing fictional encomia. The importance of role-play and the status of canonical texts in rhetorical education suggest that we should approach fakes, not as aberrations that need to be purged from the canon, but as expressions of a literary culture in which creative engagements with canonical texts were the backbone of the educational system and a well-accepted mode of interaction with the literature of the past.