Studi su Isocrate

This volume brings together a series of essays on Isocrates published over the course of forty years, with the addition of an unpublished one, as well as some reviews, and accounts for a research path that captures, from time to time, the multiple interests of the orator: democracy and its functioning; Panhellenic hegemony; the serious social issues that plagued 4th-century Greece tormented by wars and civil strife, impoverishment and social instability; the importance of Greek culture and its relationship with the ‘other’ world. The proposals Isocrates makes on these issues are supported by an argumentation that makes extensive use of the manipulation of historical memory, by which the past, Athenian and otherwise, was adapted to the needs of propaganda: then as now, the ‘construction of the past’ was inseparable from political persuasion. From the contributions collected in this volume, Isocrates emerges as an acute political commentator, an intellectual protagonist and an authoritative witness to the history of Athens.