II
When several centuries later Cicero contrasted imi-
tation with truth (Vvncit imitationem veritas; De Orat.
II, 57, 215) he of course understood it as a free expres-
sion of the artist and upheld the Aristotelian doctrine.
Nevertheless, in Hellenistic and Roman days the inter-
pretation of imitation as the copying of reality pre-
vailed. Such an oversimplified interpretation of the arts
could not but evoke dissent. Imitation was then con-
trasted with and replaced by such ideas as imagination
(e.g., Maximus Tyrius, Or. XI, 3; Pseudo-Longinus, XV,
1), expression and an inner model (Callistratus, Deser.
7, 1; Dio Chrys., Or. XII, 71; Seneca, Epist. 65, 7),
freedom of the creator (Horatius De arte poet.; Lucian,
historia quo modo conscr. 9), inspiration (Callistratus,
Deser. 2, 1; Lucian, Demosth. encom. 5), invention
(Sextus Emp., Adv. math. I, 297). Philostratus Flavius
regarded imagination (fantasia) as wiser and more
creative than imitation, because the latter confines
itself only to what it has actually seen while the former
represents also things it has not seen.
The theory of imitation was a product of the classical
era of Greece. The Hellenistic and Roman epochs,
although preserving the doctrine in principle, brought
out reservations and counter-proposals: this, in fact,
was their contribution to the doctrine's history.
