Abstract
The third part of the study analyses passages with strong ties to the Aeneid V in two late fourth century poems: the so-called Cento Probae by Faltonia Betitia Proba and Cento Nuptialis by Decimus Magnus Ausonius. In Proba's work, the passages mainly relate to notable deeds of Jesus Christ (the Last Supper, walking on the water) while his disciples play the role of a (largely powerless) audience.
Ausonius, in contrast, uses a strategy of recurring references to the Aeneid V, culminating in the final part entitled Imminutio in which the role of the audience (rather voyeuristic in this case) is assumed by the readers themselves. This passage, the article claims, is a parodic response to Proba's hermeneutic programme of finding Christian meanings in Vergil's work.
All three parts of the study support the proposition that the concepts of performance and gaze are regularly employed in relation to the intertextual links to Aeneid V. A hypothesis can therefore be formulated that cento authors, readers, and perhaps even late-ancient Romans in general, perceived this thematic layer as dominant within the book.