Greek Literature

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Satyrus (1), Peripatetic author, fl. 3rd cent. BCE  

Stephanie West

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Philosophy
Peripatetic author from Callatis (Mangalia, Romania). Works: (1)Bioi (Lives) of kings, statesmen, orators, philosophers, and poets, known chiefly from citations by *Athenaeus (1) and *Diogenes (6) Laertius. POxy. 1176 preserves a substantial fragment on *Euripides from book 6, which also covered *Aeschylus and *Sophocles (1). Satyrus evidently used a *dialogue form; though the style is agreeable, the approach is unscholarly, material being drawn from comedy and anecdote, and from passages in Euripides' plays uncritically treated as autobiographical.(2)Peri characteron (On characters); the one fragment, a passage quoted by Athenaeus (4. 168e), exhibits the moralistic propensity observable in the fragments of the Lives. (Other authors of the same name should be credited with works On the*demesof*Alexandria(1) (FGrH631, cf. POxy. 2465 (RE18), on myths (RE19; see next entry), and on gems (RE20).

Article

the self in Greek literature  

Christopher Gill

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
29 March 2017
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Philosophy
The notion of “self” is a non-technical one, bridging the areas of psychology and ethics or social relations. Criteria for selfhood include psychological unity or cohesion, agency, responsibility, self-consciousness, reflexivity, and capacity for relationships with others. “Self” is a modern concept with no obvious lexical equivalent in Greek (or Latin); the question therefore arises of the relationship between the modern concept and ancient thinking, as embodied in Greek literature. Three approaches to this question can be identified. One focuses on the idea that there is development within Greek literature towards an understanding of the self or person as a cohesive unit and bearer of agency and responsibility. Another approach sees certain aspects of Greek literature and philosophy as prefiguring some features of the modern concept of self. A third approach underlines the difference between the Greek and modern thought worlds in the formulation of concepts in this area, while also suggesting that Greek ideas and modes of presenting people can be illuminating to moderns, in part because of the challenge posed by their difference. These approaches draw on a range of evidence, including psychological vocabulary, characterization in Greek literature, and Greek philosophical analyses of ethical psychology. There are grounds for maintaining the credibility of all three approaches, and also valid criticisms that can be made of each of them.

Article

thymos  

Douglas Cairns

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
26 March 2019
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Philosophy
Thymos (or thumos), cognate with Indo-European words meaning “smoke,” is one of a number of terms in Greek which associate psychological activity with air and breath. In the Homeric poems, thymos is one of a family of terms associated with internal psychological process of thought, emotion, volition, and motivation. Though the range of the term’s applications in Homer is wide, that in itself gives us a sense of the unity of cognitive, affective, and desiderative processes in Homeric psychology. No post-Homeric author can rival that range, but something of the richness of the Homeric conception of thymos as an interrelated set of motivations re-emerges in Plato’s conception of the tripartite soul in the Republic and the Phaedrus. Plato’s thymos represents a pared-down model of human agency typified by one central desire or aim in life but also exhibiting whatever further capacities of persons are necessary to enable it to pursue that aim in interaction with the other elements of the personality. As in Homer, the metaphorical agency of Plato’s thymos does not detract from the notion of the individual as the real centre of agency.

Article

Xenophanes, of Colophon, poet, theologian, and natural philosopher  

Charles H. Kahn

Article

Publication History:

Published online:
07 March 2016
Subjects:
  1. Greek Literature
  2. Philosophy
Xenophanes of Colophon, poet, theologian, and natural philosopher, left Ionia (see ionians) at the age of 25, probably after the Persian Conquest in 545 bce, and led a wandering life for 67 years, as he tells us himself in a preserved passage from an elegiac poem (DK 21 B 8). He lived in several cities in Sicily, and is reported to have composed an epic on the colonization of *Elea (see colonization, greek), but the tradition that he was the teacher of *Parmenides is doubtful. He is credited with being the first author of satirical verses (Silloi). The extant fragments, in various metres and genres, include two long elegiac passages on how to conduct a civilized *symposium and on the civic importance of his own work and wisdom (sophiē).A skilful poet in the tradition of *Tyrtaeus and *Solon, Xenophanes carried the Ionian intellectual enlightenment to *Magna Graecia.