This collection of essays examines the presence of what might be seen as an unclassical love of paradox and the marvellous in the literature and art of Augustan Rome, and shows that it is an important strain in the poetry of Virgil, Horace, and Ovid, as well as in prose works of history and rhetoric, and in the Augustan visual arts. this collection offers a rewarding examination of a refreshingly unusual subject.