Le attestazioni del verbo clepto nel latino tardo e medievale

The study analyses the occurrences of the verb ‘clepto’ (“to steal secretly”), which is found for the first time in Latin in the anonymous poem on the Heptateuchos (V cent. A. D.), the most extensive paraphrase of the Bible which we know. The origin of ‘clepto’ (intensive of clepo or late Graecism?) is focused by the examination of the forms related to it (‘cleps’ , ‘cleptim’) and the possible relations between ‘clepto’ and ‘clepo’, which occurs in Plautus and, with few exceptions, is confined to the archaic or archaizing language. The study also investigates the occurrences of ‘clepto’ in medieval authors (the anonymous poet of the ‘Miracula Nyniae episcopi’ and Aethelwulf in his ‘Carmen de abbatibus’), in order to highlight, through a comparative examination, direct or indirect dependences from the poem on the Heptateuchos and the importance of its linguistic code for the mediaeval authors.