Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T07:55:44.671Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Wandering philosophers in Classical Greece*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2012

Silvia Montiglio
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin at Madison

Extract

The wandering philosopher is best known to us as a Romantic ideal that projects one's longing for physical and mental withdrawal. Rousseau's ‘promeneur solitaire’ does not cover great distances to bring a message to the world. His wanderings, most often in the immediate surroundings, rather convey spiritual alienation. But the ‘promeneur solitaire’ is not the only kind of wandering philosopher known in Western culture. Itinerant philosophers existed already in antiquity. During the Roman empire, many sages wandered all over the Mediterranean world. They went about for the sake of intellectual and spiritual enrichment, but essentially to spread their teaching and to intervene in local quarrels as religious consultants. Wandering connoted their ambiguous status in society—both in and out—and thereby enhanced their charisma and endowed them with an aura of superior power.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, G. (1994) Sage, Saint and Sophist. Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman Empire (London and New York)Google Scholar
Asheri, D. (ed.) (1991) Erodoto, Le storie I (2nd ed., Milan)Google Scholar
Baldry, H.C. (1965) The Unity of Mankind in Greek Thought (Cambridge)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, W.S. (ed.) (1964) Euripides Hippolytos (Oxford)Google Scholar
Billerbeck, M. (1993) ‘Le Cynisme idéalisé d'Épictète à Julien’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 319–38Google Scholar
Billot, M.-F. (1993) ‘Antisthène et le Cynosarges dans l'Athènes des Ve et IVe siècles’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 69116Google Scholar
Bluck, R.S. (1975) Plato's Sophist (Manchester)Google Scholar
Bowersock, G.W. (1969) Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford)Google Scholar
Branham, R.B. (1993) ‘Diogenes' rhetoric and the invention of Cynicism’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 445–73Google Scholar
Branham, R.B. and Goulet-Cazé, M.-O. (eds.) (1996) The Cynics. The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and its Legacy (Berkeley and Los Angeles)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bremmer, J. (1991) ‘Walking, standing, and sitting in ancient Greek culture’, in Bremmer, J. and Roodenburg, H. (eds.), A Cultural History of Gesture (Ithaca) 1335Google Scholar
Burkert, W. (1983) Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth, trans, by Bing, Peter (Berkeley)Google Scholar
Casson, L. (1994) Travel in the Ancient World (2nd ed., Baltimore and London)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cornford, F.M.(1960) ‘Empedocles’, in The Cambridge Ancient History (Cambridge) 4.5639Google Scholar
Coxon, A.H. (ed.) (1986) The Fragments of Parmenides (Assen and Maastricht)Google Scholar
Cremonini, G. (ed.) (1991) Anacharsi Scita, Lettere (Palermo)Google Scholar
Dorandi, T. (1993) ‘La Politeia de Diogène de Sinope et quelques remarques sur sa pensée politique’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 5768Google Scholar
Dover, K. (ed.) (1995) Plato Symposium (2nd ed., Cambridge)Google Scholar
Downing, F.G. (1993) ‘Cynics and Early Christianity’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 281304Google Scholar
Dudley, D. (1937) A History of Cynicism. From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. (London)Google Scholar
Gallavotti, C. (ed.) (1975) Empedocle. Poema fisico e lustrale (Milan)Google Scholar
Gallop, D. (ed.) (1984) Parmenides of Elea, Fragments (Toronto, Buffalo and London)Google Scholar
Giannantoni, G. (1993) ‘Antistene fondatore della scuola cinica?’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 1534Google Scholar
Goulet-Cazé, M.-O. (1986) L'ascèse cynique (Paris)Google Scholar
Goulet-Cazé, M.-O. and Goulet, R. (eds.) (1993) Le Cynisme ancien et ses prolongements (Paris)Google Scholar
Griffin, M.T. (1993) ‘Le mouvement cynique et les Romains: attraction et répulsion’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 241–58Google Scholar
Hartog, F. (1980) Le miroir d'Hérodote (Paris)Google Scholar
Höistad, R. (1948) Cynic Hero and Cynic King. Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Uppsala)Google Scholar
Kerferd, G.B. (1981) The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Khazanov, A.-M. (1982) ‘Les Scythes et la civilisation antique: problèmes des contacts’, Dialogues d'histoire ancienne 8, 751CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kindstrand, J.F. (1981) Anacharsis. The Legend and the Apophthegmata (Uppsala)Google Scholar
Ladner, G.B. (1967) ‘Homo Viator, mediaeval ideas on alienation and order’, Speculum 42, 233–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lana, I. (1951) ‘Tracce di dottrine cosmopolitiche in Grecia prima del Cinismo’, Rivista di Filologia e di Istruzione Classica n.s. 29, 193–216 and 317–38Google Scholar
Long, A.A. (1993) ‘The Socratic tradition: Diogenes, Crates, and Hellenistic ethics’, in Branham and Goulet-Cazé (eds.) 2846Google Scholar
Loraux, N. (1995) The Experiences of Tiresias: The Feminine and the Greek Man, trans, by Wissing, Paula (Princeton)Google Scholar
Lovejoy, A.O. and Boas, G. (1980) Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity (2nd ed., New York)Google Scholar
Marincola, J. (1997) ‘Odysseus and the historians’, Histos 1 (http:/www.dur.ac.uk/Classics/histos/1997)Google Scholar
Martin, A. and Primavesi, O. (eds.) (1999) L'Empédocle de Strasbourg (P. Strasb. gr. Inv. 1665–1666). Introduction, édition et commentaire (Berlin and New York)Google Scholar
Martin, R. (1996) ‘The Scythian accent: Anacharsis and the Cynics’, in Branham and Goulet-Cazé (eds.) 136–55Google Scholar
Matton, S. (1996) ‘Cynicism and Christianity from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance’, in Branham and Goulet-Cazé (eds.) 240–64Google Scholar
Moles, J. (1993) ‘Le cosmopolitisme cynique’, in Goulet-Cazé and Goulet (eds.) 259–80Google Scholar
Movia, G. (1994) Apparenze, essere e verità. Commentario storico-filosofico al ‘Sofista‘ di Platone (2nd ed., Milan)Google Scholar
Navia, L. (1996) Classical Cynicism. A Critical Study (Westport, Conn, and London)Google Scholar
O'Brien, D. (1969) Empedocles' Cosmic Cycle (Cambridge)Google Scholar
Onfray, D. (1990) Cynismes. Portrait du philosophe en chien (Paris)Google Scholar
Padel, R. (1995) Whom Gods Destroy (Princeton)Google Scholar
Paquet, R. (1975) Les Cyniques grecs. Fragments et témoignages (Ottawa)Google Scholar
Payen, P. (1997) Les îles nomades. Conquérir et résister dans l'Enquête d'Herodote (Paris)Google Scholar
Pratt, L. (1993) Lying and Poetry from Homer to Pindar: Falsehood and Deception in Archaic Greek Poetics (Ann Arbor)Google Scholar
Rankin, H.D. (1983) Sophists, Socratics and Cynics (London and Canberra)Google Scholar
Redfield, J. (1985) ‘Herodotus the tourist’, Classical Philology 80, 97118CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, S. (1983) Plato's Sophist. The Drama of Original and Image (New Haven and London)Google Scholar
Rousseau, J.-J. (1959) Oeuvres complètes (Paris)Google Scholar
Sayre, F. (1938) Diogenes of Sinope. A Study of Greek Cynicism (Baltimore)Google Scholar
Sayre, F. (1948) The Greek Cynics (Baltimore)Google Scholar
Segal, C. (1994) Singers, Heroes, and Gods in the Odyssey (Ithaca and London)Google Scholar
Stanford, W.B. (1968) The Ulysses Theme. A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero (Ann Arbor)Google Scholar
Ungefehr-Kortus, C. (1996) Anacharsis, der Typus des edlen, weisen Barbaren (Frankfurt)Google Scholar
Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, U. von(1969) Euripides Herakles (Darmstadt)Google Scholar
Wright, M.R. (ed.) (1995) Empedocles. The Extant Fragments (2nd ed., London and Indianapolis)Google Scholar
Zafiropulo, M.R. (1953) Empédocle d'Agrigente (Paris)Google Scholar