Littérature scientifique sur le sujet « Apoftegmi »

Tese de doutoramento em Estudos Clássicos, no ramo de Filologia Clássica, apresentada à Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra
The research work is divided into two basic parts: the translation and commentary of some sections of the book Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata by Plutarch. In particular they have been taken into consideration the Dedicatory epistle to Trajan and the sections dealing with Agathocles, Antipater, Aristides, Alcibiades, Iphicrates, Timotheus, Phocion, Teleclus, Lysander and Pelopidas. The translation was prepared on the basis of the Latin translation by Xylander, the Italian ones by Adriani and Pettine, the English one by Babbitt, the Spanish one by Lόpez Salvá and the French one by Fuhrmann. For each anecdote the different interpretative proposals of the translators have been highlighted in the footnotes. The commentary has been developed along two lines, the former intratextual, the latter intertextual. In the first istance, the attention was paid to the study of the words used by the author, which helped to identify the frequency of some fundamental themes of ethical and political thought of Plutarch, such as the need for the governor not to be tormented by lust for wealth, not to be led astray by private interests and friendships in the management of public affairs, to be able to evaluate flexibly critical circumstances that occur from time to time, shaping the policy and operational positions to them and avoiding fruitless and stiffness intransigence. Before the eyes of the reader the author slides the long series of anecdotes, inviting them to consider which are the virtues, but also the vices that led eminent people to prosperity or to ruin. And what emerges consistently from each short story is the importance of reflection and pondering every time you are about to perform an action or reply to a question not without insolence. It is recommended and appropriate learning to tame irrational forces of the soul through the exercise of λόγος; in fact they cannot be eradicated completely. It is because of this constant and gradual exercise of self improvement that energy, which man has, can be harnessed and directed to noble deeds for those who make them and fruitful for those who benefit them. The policy ultimately cannot be separated from ethics; a politician, who is not persistent in improving his mind and free it from all forms of selfishness, will not benefit at all to those who are subjected to his command. In many cases it is possible to find in the text the words which introduce explicitly the above issues, as, for example, φιλοπλουτία, ἀδικία, δίκη, τóλμα, θάρσος, ἀργία; in other cases it can be deduced from the meaning of the anecdote which category of values the author is referring to. The presence of the terms relating to each theme, in the commentary of the individual anecdotes, are then summarized in a synoptic table in order to allow an immediate comparison of the characters and the vices/virtues attributed by the author. Another aspect investigated thoroughly is the author's appeal to rhetorical devices to give the apophthegms incisiveness, especially when the author summarizes episodes which are more extended and articulated in the Lives and other plutarchian books. In the Apophthegmata you can find especially the chiasmus, which the author often uses to contrast the thinking and acting of the character to that of his detractors; the etymological figure and the polyptoton, with which the main theme of the plutarchian reflection is repeatedly drawn inside the anecdote. It was further highlighted that in the collection of apofthegms there are two types of anecdote; there is, in most cases, the presence of apophthegmata placed at the conclusion of a synthetic context, outlined with rapid hints; but it also notes the introduction of a specific episode of war and customs of characters, devoid of judgment in the epigraph, which are also designed to emphasize an ethical feature and behavior of the character in question. The second line, that we proceeded in the research work, was the comparison of each anecdote with versions of the same occurring in other works by Plutarch. The comparison showed that in some cases the versions coincide almost entirely in the vocabulary and meaning, but on many occasions the perspective, from which the story is presented by the author, varies slightly and sometimes considerably. It has been noted in fact that some details of the anecdote are eclipsed or modified by the author based on the context in which they are placed; the same story is then molded according to the theme that the author is dealing with. In general it was found that in Apophthegmata the presentation of the characters tends to be more positive than in other works by Plutarch, operation where the author comes removing from anecdotes details that could negatively connote the character. At the base of the anecdotes they could hypothetically be the so-called ὑπομνήματα, ie raw notes that Plutarch would be recorded in the course of its various readings and which he would use in the composition of his works. It is given adequate account about this problem in a specific chapter of the thesis, which examines the theories proposed in particular by Van der Stockt, Van Meirvenne, Pelling, Städter and Beck on the nature of ὑπομνήματα. According to some of them the content of the clusters, which are groups of ὑπομνήματα, would mainly philosophical in nature, according to others mainly historical. Furthermore on the one hand it is believed that the Apohthegmata constitute a drafting stage intermediate between the hypothetical sketched ὑπομνήματα and anecdotes as are processed in different works by Plutarch. On the other hand however the collectionof apophthegms is considered complete and independent from the drafting of the Lives and Moralia, theory that appeared to me more convincing on the basis of the rhetorical and stylistic analysis that I developed. The anecdotes do not appear to a stage of stylistic poor structuring and the use of a certain category of rhetorical devices and the tendency to obscure incriminating details for the characters seem to respond to a specific purpose of the author. Another chapter is devoted to the presentation of the debate on the problematic attribution of the work to Plutarch. In this chapter we review the opinions expressed in particular by Xylander, Wyttenbach, Benseler, Volkmann, Schmidt, Sass, Weissenberger, Hartman, Babbitt, Ziegler, Flacelière, Fuhrmann and Beck, noting that the most recent studies, particularly those of Beck, the scholars tend to recognize the paternity of the collection of anecdotes. According to him and other scholars the conciseness of anecdotes than the versions, which are read in the other works by Plutarch, would not be valid indication of inauthenticity; instead it would respond to the specific needs required by the type of the literary genre.

2013 - 2014
The research work is divided into two basic parts: the translation and commentary of some sections of the book Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata by Plutarch. In particular they have been taken into consideration the Dedicatory epistle to Trajan and the sections dealing with Agathocles, Antipater, Aristides, Alcibiades, Iphicrates, Timotheus, Phocion, Teleclus, Lysander and Pelopidas. The translation was prepared on the basis of the Latin translation by Xylander, the Italian ones by Adriani and Pettine, the English one by Babbitt, the Spanish one by Lόpez Salvá and the French one by Fuhrmann. For each anecdote the different interpretative proposals of the translators have been highlighted in the footnotes... [edited by author]
XIII n.s.