Cattle in the marketplace: the abandoned agora in Plutarch's Life of Timoleon and Dio Chrysostom's Euboean Discourse
Author
Faculty Advisor
Date
2024
Keywords
Plutarch, citizen behaviour, criticism and interpretation, literary criticism
Abstract (summary)
Plutarch, in the Life of Timoleon, notes that Syracuse's agora had been abandoned and was being used as a pasture before Timoleon's expulsion of the tyrants (Tim. 22.4-5). Dio Chrysostom, in his Euboean Discourse, describes an agora similarly serving as pasturage ( Or. 7.38-39 ). Since the condition of Sicily described in Plutarch's pages does not coincide with archaeological evidence from the island, and since Dio avoids naming his Euboean city, we may consider these descriptions to be more rhetorical or symbolic than strictly historical. A recent diachronic study of the agora, illustrating the continued use and maintenance of the agorai in Greek cities through the Hellenistic and Roman periods, similarly suggests that we should not take either author literally with respect to the image of an abandoned agora.
Publication Information
Bailey, C. (2024). Cattle in the Marketplace: The Abandoned Agora in Plutarch's Life of Timoleon and Dio Chrysostom's Euboean Discourse. In K. Jaždžewska & F. Doroszewski (Ed.), Plutarch and his Contemporaries: Sharing the Roman Empire: 14-32. Brill Academic Publishers. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004687301_003
Notes
Item Type
Book Chapter
Language
Rights
All Rights Reserved