Virgil the Fabricator in the Epitaphium Arsenii Justin Lake * Abstract In the ‘Epitaphium Arsenii’ of Paschasius Radbertus the author’s fictional persona accuses Virgil (mistakenly) of having stolen a line from Horace. This paper examines what led Paschasius to make this allegation and why Virgil was associated with plagiarism and falsehoods while Horace could be seen as a philosopher and moralist. Keywords Paschasius Radbertus; Virgil; Horace; plagiarism; Epitaph of Arsenius. The Epitaphium Arsenii (hereafter EA), a funeral oration for Wala of Corbie (ca. 772/80-836) written by Paschasius Radbertus (ca. 790-c. 860) and framed as a dialogue between grieving monks of the abbey of Corbie, is a key source for the reign of Louis the Pious, and in particular for the two rebellions against him in 830 and 833. 1 It is no accident that a quotation from the EA stands at the head of the chapter on Louis the * Department of International Studies, Texas A&M University, USA. 1 Paschasius Radbertus, Epitaphium Arsenii (hereafter EA), ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin: Verlag der königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1900). See Mayke de Jong, Epitaph for an Era: Politics and Rhetoric in the Carolingian World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019); and David Ganz, “The Epitaphium Arsenii and Opposition to Louis the Pious,” in Charlemagne’s Heir: New Perspectives on the Reign of Louis the Pious (814-840), ed. Peter Godman and Roger Collins (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 537-50, at 538-39. The text is translated in Mayke de Jong and Justin Lake, Confronting Crisis in the Carolingian Empire: Paschasius Radbertus’ Funeral Oration for Wala of Corbie (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020).