Socratic letters

Socratic letters is the common short name for a collection of letter literature by Greek authors of the 2nd or 3rd century.

The artful elaboration fictional letters under the name of respected philosophers of antiquity was a common in Greek literature of empire rhetorical exercise. Socrates and various of his students (e.g. Aristippus ) figure as the author . The collection has not yet been fully cataloged philologically and editorially. Whether it can be assigned to the 2nd or 3rd century is also still unclear.

The oldest and most important manuscript, from which all other text witnesses are copied, is the Codex Vaticanus Graecus 64 (approx. 1270). This codex contains a collection of such letters under the title: The Letters of Socrates and the Socratics .

expenditure

• Friedrich Wilhelm August Mullach : Fragmenta philosophorum graecorum . Paris 1860–81. Reprint: Scientia Verlag, Aalen 1968.

literature

• Johannes Sykutris : Socratic letters . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Supplement V, Stuttgart 1931, Col. 981-987.
• Johannes Sykutris: The letters of Socrates and the Socratics . Paderborn 1933.
• Lieselotte Koehler : The letters of Socrates and the Socratics . Dissertation Zurich 1928.
• Wilhelm Obens : Qua aetate Socratis et Socraticorum epistulae, quae dicuntur, scriptae sunt . Dissertation Münster 1912.