This chapter examines late antique, Greek and Latin centos from the perspective of the poets who wrote them and the authors who read them, with specific attention given to Ausonius’ preface and epilogue to his Cento Nuptialis, Aelia Eudocia’s prefatory poem to her Homeric Cento, and proem of Proba’s Vergilian cento. The scope of this chapter also includes other treatments of centos, in particular that of Jerome. My reading of these paratextual and critical moments of Greco-Roman cento authors and readers highlights recurring themes which clarify the various ways that appropriating ‘canonical’ texts to create a new whole was viewed. This chapter contributes to the scholarly conversations about literary ownership, textual unity, and notions of the sacred and the profane by situating these themes within the context of (re)using Homeric and Vergilian verse in Late Antiquity.

Beginning with a striking passage in which the Sibylline narrator asserts her intellectual ownership of Homer’s work, I point out its Theogonic framing, before surveying other thematic and stylistic invocations of Hesiod across the Sibylline corpus. I argue that Hesiod, without being named, is given programmatic importance as a Classicizing alternative to Homeric authority and wisdom. I then distinguish three strategies of Sibylline transformation of Biblical material in Homeric colouring into apocalyptic visions: amplification of scenes of destruction, cosmic revision of individual action, and the countering of heroic epic values with monotheistic principles. In each of these, ideas of ‘the Hesiodic’ generated by its ancient reception provide a cipher for the critique of the Homeric cosmos implied by Sibylline rewriting of Jewish and Christian scriptures in the direction of universal history. I conclude by offering comparanda for future studies.