Evidence as to the social and chronological context of the building includes an erotic epigram by the Greek poet Callimachus, painted onto the interior wall, which entreats a male lover to forgive misbehaviour caused by lust and wine. A visually prominent Hellenistic precedent reinforced the individualistic emotionalism and witty experimentation valued by Augustan neoteric and elegiac writers, who would have frequented the weighty functions of Maecenas, a renowned cultivator of culture. In fact, a Latin adaptation of the same poem appears in the works of Propertius, who certainly spent significant time on the estate.