The Characters: No 225 (Loeb Classical Library) - Hardcover

Theophrastus' "Characters", an engaging survey of bad behaviour, is full of what R. C. Jebb called 'the social language of Athens' as practised by members of its fourth-century leisure class...Jeffrey Rusten's recent addition to the Loeb Classical Library series provides a wholly readable translation and a conscientious edition of a problematic text.--Elizabeth Bobrick "Journal of Hellenic Studies "

THIS EDITION HAS BEEN REPLACED BY A NEWER EDITION.This volume collects some of the liveliest examples of Greek literary portraiture. The "Characters" of Theophrastus sketches thirty hypothetical men, each dominated by a single fault, such as rudeness, superstitution, or greed. Unassuming in style, the sketches nonetheless bear resemblance on the one hand to Aristotle's account of faults and virtues and on the other to the vivid figures of Menandrian New Comedy. This new text and translation by Jeffrey Rusten is based on the most recent scholarship.Herodas flourished in the 270s and 260s--the high point of Hellenistic poetry. His poems are choliambic mimes, dramatic dialogues that depict characters in everyday urban settings and situations. I. C. Cunningham presents a new translation of Herodas, based on his Teubner text.Also included here, in a reprint of the earlier Loeb edition by A. D. Knox, are the fragments of Greek poetry in the choliambic meter--especially those which offer a tantalizing glimpse into the raucous and sordid world of Hipponax--and the lyric iambics on themes of Cynic philosophy by Cercidas.