DIOGENE DI BABILONIA E ARISTONE NEL PHERC. 1004 ([FILODEMO], [SULLA RETORICA], LIBRO INCERTO) PARTE SECONDA*

Abstract

The main evidence about the lost treatise On Rhetoric by the Stoic philosopher Diogenes of Babylon (c. 230-150/140 B.C.) is represented by large passages coming from Philodemus’ On Rhetoric Book 3 and Unknown Book (PHerc. 1004). Here Diogenes condemns professional rhetoric and rhetors with arguments which are either coincident or very similar to those used by an unknown Aristo in the final section of the same book. In particular, according to Philodemus, Diogenes drew from some enigmatic hypomnemata by this philosopher for his own treatise On Rhetoric. Now, attacks against traditional rhetors, though different in kind and intensity, are attested in antiquity for only two philosophers by this name: the Peripatetic Aristo the Younger, pupil of Critolaus, and the Stoic Aristo of Chius, disciple of Zeno and the author of a polemical pamphlet Against the Rhetors. Both chronological and philosophical arguments compel us to exclude the former and strongly point to the latter.