This paper is to be considered a preliminary approach towards a more general study on the
generic consciousness of pastoral in Greek late antique literature and art. While bucolic poetry in
its proper meaning and genre is quite rare in Greek late literature, there is a great diffusion of
pastoral imagery in other genres, like epic and epigrammatic poetry, according to the general
trend of generic deconstruction in Late antique literature. Pastoral images could express
traditional erotic themes or even emphasize the distress for political troubles evoking a blissful
way of life (in the case of an epigram by Cyrus of Panopolis). The strong presence of bucolic
images in Nonnus’ Dionysiacs shows the possibilities of reusing pastoral tradition in an epic
poem: a part from the traditional theme of pastoral unhappy love, we find pastoral similitudes in
description of battles, or pastoral motifs exploited to show the superiority of Dionysiac song to
bucolic poetry. The allegorical meaning of pastoral is, in fact, overspread in late poetry,
especially referring to poetic investiture, as some exemples from different genres and authors
show (Quintus of Smyrne, an ethopeic poem from Oxyrhynchus, the Christian poem of Nonnus,
the orphic poem On Stones).
