Description

Examines the whole spectrum of Greek and Roman biography, which explores the virtues and vices of philosophers, statesmen and poets. Explores the whole range and diversity of ancient biography, from its Socratic beginnings to the Christian acquisition of the form in late antiquity. It reveals the surprising variety and intrinsic value of Greek and Roman biographical writing, which explores the virtues and vices of philosophers, statesmen and poets. Explores the whole range and diversity of ancient biography, from its Socratic beginnings to the Christian acquisition of the form in late antiquity. It reveals the surprising variety and intrinsic value of Greek and Roman biographical writing, which explores the virtues and vices of philosophers, statesmen and poets. Greek and Roman biography embraces much more than Plutarch, Suetonius and their lost Hellenistic antecedents. In this book Professor Hägg explores the whole range and diversity of ancient biography, from its Socratic beginnings to the Christian acquisition of the form in late antiquity. He shows how creative writers developed the lives of popular heroes like Homer, Aesop and Alexander and how the Christian gospels grew from bare sayings to full lives. In imperial Rome biography flourished in the works of Greek writers: Lucian's satire, Philostratus' full sophistic orchestration, Porphyry's intellectual portrait of Plotinus. Perhaps surprisingly, it is not political biography or the lives of poets that provide the mai