Saggezza in politica, saggezza in battaglia: alcuni personaggi dei Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Abstract

This contribution is intended to consider some of the characters in the apoftegmatic collection, who can extricate themselves from difficult political and war situations, showing to be able to act in an intelligent and reasonable way, and avoiding that insane passions can take over and, consequently, may compromise the stability and integrity of the state or of the army. The pronounced sentences given by them are a clue of φρόνησις and σωφροσύνη, clearly or vaguely expressed terms within this pamphlet. The anecdotes are analyzed from an intratextual point of view, highlighting the various rhetorical devices the author uses, and in an intertextual viewpoint, in order to highlight the affinities and/or discrepancies that emerge from the comparison of the variants of the same anecdote in Plutarch’s works.