Search results for "Philodemu"
showing 4 items of 4 documents
Granting Epicurean Wisdom at Rome: Exchange and Reciprocity in Lucretius' Didactic (DRN 1.921-950)
2018
In the first book of De Rerum Natura, Lucretius describes his didactic undertaking as a metaphorical process of gift exchange (1.50-53): the obscure and salvific precepts of Epicurean philosophy, skilfully arranged in hexameters, are said to be 'gifts' (dona) that the poet has prepared with loyal zeal (studio fideli). Such a suggestive depiction of Lucretius' relationship to the work's dedicatee, Gaius Memmius, seems to reflect a relevant functional pattern of De Rerum Natura as a coherent system of communication strategies, variously readapting social models and cultural traditions. The present paper employs the interpretative approach of gift theories – the thought-provoking theories elab…
Libraries and Intellectual Debate in the Late Republic: the Case of the Aristotelian Corpus
2013
The present chapter explores the catalyzing function of libraries in the intellectual debate of the late Roman Republic, by focusing on the significant case of the Aristotelian esoteric corpus. A careful analysis of the literary and historical evidence concerning the use of Peripatetic texts allows to detect the presence of at least two important libraries containing Aristotle's 'pragmatiai' in Roman Italy: Lucullus' collection in Tusculum and Sulla's one in Cumae. Several Greek and Latin sources bear witness to the vicissitudes of such libraries, and the present paper reassesses their accounts in order to point out the close connection between intellectual patterns and material culture - i…
Filodemo, Cicerone, Nepote: a proposito del contesto storico-culturale di Oec. Col. XXII.9-48
2018
Until recently, Philodemus’ treatise On Household Management (Περὶ οἰκονομίας, PHerc. 1424) has been mainly used as a source for the reconstruction of early Epicurean economic thought (especially of Metrodorus’ writing Περὶ πλούτου). Over the past few years, however, scholars have called attention to Philodemus’ creative (yet philosophically orthodox) readaptation of Epicurean ethical and social theories to the needs of contemporary Roman society. Following this scholarly line, the present paper reassesses a passage from On Household Management (col. XXII.9–48) which has so far been interpreted as an unoriginal repetition of Metrodorus’ arguments, and situates it in the cultural context of …