Confrontation between Philosophers and Tyrants from Hellenistic to Late Antique Biography: Evolutions of a Biographical Pattern
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/emerita.2020.06.1934Keywords:
Ancient Greek biography of philosophers, biographical patterns, tyrants, Late Antiquity, Eunapius of Sardes, Diogenes LaertiusAbstract
The confrontation between philosophers and powerful characters is a common element in Hellenistic biographies. Occasionally, this confrontation is simply dialectical, but there are no shortage of cases of genuine, bloody pagan philosophical «martyrdoms», with persecutions in every sense of the word. These deaths give the philosopher a celestial heroisation, at least according to the epigrams integrated into his biographical narration, probably because of the association with the cult of tyrannicides and, in general, heroes who receive a violent death in the mythological tradition. Inspired, plausibly, in the death of Socrates, the pattern is perpetuated in the lives of the pagan holy men. However, these latter confrontations do not cause in any case the heroic and divinising death of the philosopher, although it would have been an excellent counterpoint to the acts of Christian martyrdoms, whose literature begins to flourish just in this period.
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