Chreiai, Apophthegmata and other Compilations
Chreiai, Apophthegmata and other Compilations
This chapter discusses the forms of Hellenistic compilations. Among these were the many books of Chreiai or Sayings, which originally consisted of anecdotes or remarks attributed to a particular philosopher. The nature of the collections of chreiai in the Hellenistic age may be confirmed by examining a later work, the Apophthegmata of Plutarch, which is a form of the same kind of literature. Another form of compilation consists of a brief programmatic introduction followed by a series of illustrative historical examples. The earliest of these handbooks to survive is probably Book II of the Economics of pseudo-Aristotle, which consists for the most part of examples illustrative of a point in Aristotle's doctrine.
Keywords: Greek literature, collections, historical examples, anecdotes, Plutarch, handbooks
Liverpool Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
