This is the first extended study in English of Theophrastus' Characters, one of the briefest but also most influential works to survive from classical antiquity. Since the seventeenth century, the Characters has served as a model and an inspiration for authors as diverse as La Bruyère, Thackeray, George Eliot and Elias Canetti. This study aims to locate Theophrastus and his Characters with respect to the political and philosophical worlds of Athens in the late fourth century, focusing on later imitators in order to provide clues to reading the Theophrastan original. Special attention is paid to the problems and possibilities of the Characters as testimony to the culture and society of contemporary Athens, integrating the text into the extensive fragments and testimonies of Theophrastus' other writings. The implications for the historian of the elusive humour of the Characters, dependent in large measure on the device of caricature, are explored in detail. What emerges is a picture of the complex etiquette appropriate for upper-class citizens in the home, the streets and other public places in Athens where individuals were on display. Through their resolutely shaming behaviour, the Characters illuminate the honour for which citizens should, by implication, be striving. A key theme of the study is Theophrastus' ambivalent position in Athens: a distinguished philosopher and head of the Lyceum, yet still subject to the disabilities of his metic status.

This is the first extended study in English of Theophrastus' Characters , one of the briefest but also most influential works to survive from classical antiquity. Since the seventeenth century, the Characters has served as a model and an inspiration for authors as diverse as La Bruyère, Thackeray, George Eliot and Elias Canetti. This study aims to locate Theophrastus and his Characters with respect to the political and philosophical worlds of Athens in the late fourth century, focusing on later imitators in order to provide clues to reading the Theophrastan original. Special attention is paid to the problems and possibilities of the Characters as testimony to the culture and society of contemporary Athens, integrating the text into the extensive fragments and testimonia of Theophrastus' other writings. The implications for the historian of the elusive humour of the Characters , dependent in large measure on the device of caricature, are explored in detail. What emerges is a picture of the complex etiquette appropriate for upper-class citizens in the home, the streets and other public places in Athens where individuals were on display. Through their resolutely shaming behaviour, the Characters illuminate the honour for which citizens should, by implication, be striving. A key theme of the study is Theophrastus' ambivalent position in Athens: a distinguished philosopher and head of the Lyceum, yet still subject to the disabilities of his metic status.

A strange, wild, brilliant personal journey - across land and through time - in which Laura Beatty travels back two thousand years to rescue from obscurity Aristotle's friend and Chaucer's inspiration, the forgotten philosopher who grandfathered botany and the English novel.

This book presents an introduction to the Characters, a collection of thirty amusing descriptions of character types who lived in Athens in the fourth century BCE. The author of the work, Theophrastus, was Aristotle's colleague, his immediate successor and head of his philosophical school for thirty-five years. Pertsinidis' lively, original and scholarly monograph introduces Theophrastus as a Greek philosopher. It also outlines the remarkable influence of the Characters as a literary work and provides a detailed discussion of the work's purpose and its connection with comedy, ethics and rhetoric.

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Gavin Hardy and Laurence Totelin have brought together their botanical and historical knowledge to produce this unique overview of ancient botany. It examines all the founding texts of botanical science, such as Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants, Dioscorides' Materia Medica, Pliny the Elder's Natural History, Nicolaus of Damascus' On Plants, and Galen' On Simple Remedies, but also includes lesser known texts ranging from the sixth century BCE to the seventh century CE, as well as some material evidence. The authors adopt a thematic approach rather than a chronological one, considering important issues such as the definition of a plant, nomenclature, classifications, physiology, the link between plants and their environment, and the numerous usages of plants in the ancient world. The book also takes care to place ancient botany in its historical, social and economic context. The authors have explained all technical botanical terms and ancient history notions, and as a result, this work will appeal to historians of ancient science, medicine and technology; classicists; and botanists interested in the history of their discipline.

In Theophrastus of Eresus: On Winds, Robert Mayhew provides a critical edition of the Greek text with English translation and commentary on the sole Peripatetic treatise devoted specifically to winds, by Aristotle’s successor in the Lyceum. This is the first edition of this text to appear in over forty years, and the first ever to make use not only of the twelve medieval manuscripts but also of the Oxyrhynchus papyrus fragment of this work (first published in 1986). The lengthy commentary attempts to explain this difficult (and often corrupt) text and its relationship to Aristotle’s meteorological theory and scientific methodology.

Draws on primary sources such as Homer, Herodotus, and Plato, and on many later works on botany, history, philology, and archaeology to explore how the ancient Greeks perceived and used plants. Considers the landscape, cults and myths, medicine and magic, dyes and textiles, food, and other uses. Highly illustrated, mostly in color. First published in German in 1982 and translated from the third edition. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Volume 16 of Transaction’s acclaimed Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities series, continues the work of Project Theophrastus on the School of Aristotle. The subject of this volume is Strato of Lampsacus in Mysia on the Hellespont. Strato was the third head of the Peripatetic School after Aristotle and Theophrastus. He succeeded the latter in c. 286 BCE and was in turn succeeded by Lyco of Troas in c. 268. Diogenes Laertius describes Strato as a distinguished person who became known as "the physicist," because more than anyone else he devoted himself to the careful study of nature. Strato’s concern with the physical world is well attested by the titles of his books: On the Void, On the Heaven, and On the Wind. His other books point to a keen interest in human physiology, animal life and diseases. But it would be a mistake to think that Strato was uninterested in other areas of philosophic concern. Indeed, he wrote works on logic, first principles, theology, politics and ethics. None of this work survives intact, but the reports that have come down to us reveal much of present-day interest. Included is a new and complete edition of the ancient sources, together with a critical apparatus to the ancient texts, an English translation, and notes to the translation.