A commentary on Isocrates' Busiris / by Niall Livingstone.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Livingstone, Niall.

Series:

Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum ; 0169-8958 223.

Mnemosyne, bibliotheca classica Batava. Supplementum, 0169-8958 ; 223

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Isocrates. Busiris.

Isocrates.

Speeches, addresses, etc., Greek--History and criticism.

Speeches, addresses, etc., Greek.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (241 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2001.

Language Note:

English

System Details:

data file

Summary:

This volume contains the first scholarly commentary on the puzzling work Busiris – part mythological jeu d’esprit , part rhetorical treatise and part self-promoting polemic – by the Greek educator and rhetorician Isocrates (436-338 BC). The commentary reveals Isocrates’ strategies in advertising his own political rhetoric as a middle way between amoral ‘sophistic’ education and the abstruse studies of Plato’s Academy. Introductory chapters situate Busiris within the lively intellectual marketplace of 4th-century Athens, showing how the work parodies Plato’s Republic , and how its revisionist treatment of the monster-king Busiris reflects Athenian fascination with the ‘alien wisdom’ of Egypt. As a whole, the book casts new light both on Isocrates himself, revealed as an agile and witty polemicist, and on the struggle between rhetoric and philosophy from which Hellenism and modern humanities were born.

Contents:

Preliminary material

Introduction

Commentary

Bibliography

Index Locorum

Index Graecitatis Isocraticae

Index Nominum et rerum Potiorum.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [197]-202) and indexes.

ISBN:

1-280-46475-5

9786610464753

1-4175-9076-9

90-474-0092-5

OCLC:

171583022

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789047400929 DOI