TESTIMONIANZE SU ANASSAGORA E ALTRI PRESOCRATICI NEL LIBRO IV DELLA RETORICA DI FILODEMO. Praesocratica Herculanensia V

Abstract

In book 4 of Philodemus’ On Rhetoric, there are several testimonia to some of the most important Presocratic philosophers. They are not preserved in the central parts (midolli) of the rolls in which the book is transmitted (PHerc. 1423 and PHerc. 1673/1007, containing respectively the first tome and the entire book), but only in scorze, viz. the outermost parts of the rolls. In these passages, which involve more or less directly Anaxagoras, the Milesians, the Eleatics, the Atomists, and the Pythagoreans, we find both biographical and properly doxographical pieces of information. The biographical evidence is mainly connected to Philodemus’ argument concerning rhetoric and has often a polemical character. As for the doxographical evidence, it ranges from physical and cosmological problems to ontological and epistemological ones. For all these testimonia, this paper provides a critical edition together with a translation and a wide-ranging commentary.