CUP (2022) p/b 250pp £22.92 (ISBN (9781108932790)
This (most welcome) ‘Green-and-Yellow’ edition of Theophrastus by James Diggle is, in broad terms, a slimmed down version of his ‘Orange’ edition of 2004: slimmed down in size, but by no means in quality: it is unusual for an edition in this series to include so generous an apparatus criticus as we are given here. The (compact) Introduction comprises (1) Theophrastus and His Times, (2) The Nature and Purpose of the Characters (in 8 sections), (3) Date and (4) Transmission.
Theophrastus was born in Lesbos in about 371 BC, and thus was a metic when he came to live in Athens; his friend and scientific/philosophical colleague Aristotle was in the same position. D. gives an account of the tedious struggles for control of Athens which were taking place during the lifetime of Theophrastus (he lived to be about 85), but which do provide occasional clues to the dating of the thirty Characters (D. would prefer such a title as Distinctive Marks of Character).
As D. observes, the work ‘in conception and design, is a novel work: nothing like it, so far as we know, had been attempted before’. Insofar as a predecessor can be found, probably Semonides of Amorgos (7th century BC), in his unflattering account of women, comes closest, for although Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics analyses moral virtues and vices, ‘his persons exist for the most part out of time and space, moral paradigms, not flesh and blood’—the very opposite of what Theophrastus gives us. A possible successor, at no great distance in time, is one Ariston (whether of Keos or Chios is uncertain); in the Roman period, character-drawing, says D., becomes firmly associated with rhetoric—though we shall not, perhaps, forget Horace’s Bore, encountered in Sat.1.9.
D. goes on to discuss the purpose of the Characters—indeed, he lists about a dozen approaches and/or connexions, not excluding the Tractatus Coislinianus! Jebb sensibly suggested that Theophrastus composed the Characters for his own amusement and that of his friends. More plausibly, Pasquali argued that they were conceived as illustrative showpieces for a course of lectures on ethics—a few moments of light entertainment, suitable for oral delivery. One senses that D. is inclined to agree with Pasquali: rather teasingly, D. tells us that he once heard a ‘famous Oxford professor who would introduce into his seminars, as if on impulse, carefully designed sketches of past scholars’, D. himself having heard such a sketch of Pasquali—but we are not told the name of the professor.
More stumbling blocks emerge when questions of ‘Authenticity and Integrity’ come under consideration: D. shows that even when the work ‘has been stripped of its prooemium, its epilogues and its definitions, we still have not unwrapped the genuine article’. It is not practicable to give a full example of what will usually be a well-observed catena of a given type’s idiosyncratic practices, but D. picks out the Opsimathes, the Late-Learner who pursues activities for which he is too old: thus, he seeks the attentions of a hetaira, tries to batter her door down, gets beaten up by her younger lover—and then, instead of sensibly retiring from the fray, goes to court (δικάζεσθαι), preserved for the last word. Much, says D., has been added; and much has probably been lost, since there are many lacunae, and there were once more than the thirty sketches which we now have.
This is followed by a long section on ‘Integrity and Style’. Of necessity, this comprises a number of examples: was the style of Theophrastus obscure, inelegant, abrupt, the reverse of limpid, as some commentators have argued? D. gives examples where such harsh judgments are the very opposite of the case: ‘Here is the essence of the problem. We often find that our text of Theophrastus exhibits qualities of language and style very different from those which he is capable of achieving, that it really is obscure and inelegant, that it is not Greek at its most limpid … and so, when our text exhibits these faults, we have a right to be dissatisfied and suspicious’.
After a brief note on (much later) literary influence, D. turns to questions of dating: dramatic date, date of composition, and date of publication. The argumentation is detailed and complex, and this review speeds to the disappointing conclusions: there is no consistent dramatic date; it is impossible to assign a single date of composition to the whole collection; and the date of publication is indeterminable. Our collection as it stands reflects a version of the text which (after much manhandling) had come into existence by the first century BC—as is confirmed by the papyrological evidence.
Transmission: there are three important MSS, of which the two oldest probably date from the eleventh century AD; in all cases, the text of Theophrastus will have been added to the prototype of the corpus of rhetorical treatises in the early Byzantine period. Sixty-eight later MSS are recorded; a scholar had collated almost all of these by 1994, without finding evidence of any tradition independent of the three main MSS.
Hereupon is given the text, with full app. crit., and then the detailed commentary. D. has said (in the Preface) that the text as presented can be difficult in language and style. This should not deter potential readers—and D. has, he tells us, inter multa alia ‘radically reshaped and rewritten the commentary, with more lemmata, more translations, and many basic explanations of matters of fact and language’: in other words, making the text more accessible to today’s students: thus, CGL is used rather than LSJ.
Individual Characters are given introductory notes. The reviewer can confirm that the result, detailed as it is, is exemplary, and a model of clarity, with illustrations of the text, even when full, limited to what is relevant. There is a Bibliography and two Indexes, of Subjects and (very short) Words and Phrases.
This is an outstanding edition and at under £23 for the paperback edition it is very reasonably priced. There was much more to Theophrastus than the Characters, of course: just how much more can be learnt from Laura Beatty’s recently published Looking for Theophrastus, which this reviewer has enjoyed and also recommends (see https://classicsforall.org.uk/reading-room/book-reviews/looking-theophr…).
Colin Leach