Theophrastus's Characters: An Ancient Take on Bad Behavior
About this ebook
"These Characters are people we know―they're our quirky neighbors, our creepy bosses, our blind dates from hell. Sharp-tongued Theophrastus, made sharper than ever in this fresh new edition, reminds us that Athenian weirdness is as ageless as Athenian wisdom." —Mary Beard, Professor of Classics at Cambridge University, presenter of BBC's Civilisations
When Aristotle wrote that that "comedy is about people worse than ourselves," he may have been recalling a hard-edged gem of a treatise written by his favorite student, Theophrastus. Theophrastus's Characters is a joyous festival of fault-finding: a collection of thirty closely observed personality portraits, defining the full spectrum of human flaws, failings, and follies. With piquant details of speech and behavior taken straight off the streets of ancient Athens, Theophrastus gives us sketches of the mean, vile, and annoying that are comically distorted yet vividly real.
Enlivened by Pamela Mensch's fresh translation―the first widely available English version in over half a century―Theophrastus's Characters transports us to a world populated by figures of flesh and blood, not bronze and marble. The wry, inventive drawings help envoke the cankered wit of this most modern of ancient texts. Lightly but helpfully annotated by classicist James Romm, these thirty thumbnail portraits are startlingly recognizable twenty-three centuries later. The characters of Theophrastus are archetypes of human nature that remain insightful, caustic, and relevant.
About the author
Theophrastus went to Athens as a youth and studied in Plato’s school. After Plato’s death, he became a colleague of Aristotle and was his successor at the Lyceum. Theophrastus presided over the Peripatetic school for thirty-six years.. He is also recognized for his work in botany.
Pamela Mensch is a translator of Herodotus, Plutarch, Arrian, and Diogenes Laertius. Her translated texts include Lives of the Eminent Philosophers: Diogenes Laertius (Oxford University Press, 2018), Alexander the Great: Selections from Arrian, Diodorus, Plutarch, and Quintus Curtius (Hackett, 2005), The Landmark Arrian: The Campaign of Alexander (Anchor, 2012), Lives that Made Greek History: Plutarch (Hackett, 2012), and Histories: Herodotus (Hackett Classics, 2014). She lives in New York City.
James Romm is an author, reviewer, and the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annadale, New York. His reviews and essays have appeared in the London Review of Books and The New York Times Book Review, among other publications. His books include The Edges of the Earth in Ancient Thought (Princeton University Press, 1992), Ghost on the Throne: The Death of Alexander the Great and the Bloody Fight for His Empire (Vintage, 2012), Dying Every Day: Seneca at the Court of Nero (Vintage, 2014), The Age of Caesar: Five Roman Lives (W. W. Norton, 2017), and How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life (Princeton University Press, 2018).
