A Commentary on Plutarch's De latenter vivendo

Plutarch's De latenter vivendo is the only extant work from Antiquity in which Epicurus' famous ideal of an 'unnoticed life' (lathe biosas) is thematised as such. Moreover, the short rhetorical work provides a lot of interesting information about Plutarch's polemical strategies and about his own philosophical convictions in the domains of ethics, politics, metaphysics, and eschatology. In this book, Plutarch's anti-Epicurean polemic is understood against the background of the previous philosophical tradition. An examination of Epicurus' own position is followed by a discussion of Plutarch's polemical predecessors (Timocrates, Cicero, the early Stoics, and Seneca) and contemporaries (Epictetus), and by a systematical and detailed analysis of Plutarch's own arguments. The lemmatic commentary offers additional information and parallel passages (both from Plutarch's own works and from others authors) that cast a new light on the text.

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction

1. Epicurus and Epicurean tradition

2. The anti-Epicurean tradition before Plutarch

3. Plutarch's De latenter vivendo

Commentary

Bibliography

Indices

Format: Monograph - ebook

279 pages

ISBN: 9789461660190

Publication: March 20, 2013

Series: Plutarchea Hypomnemata 1

Languages: English

Geert Roskam is Professor of Greek language and literature at KU Leuven.