CLAS 1107 · Theophrastus Simulacrum and the Everyday Greek

Led by Theophrastus of Eresus Simulacrum

1. Module 7 ○ Open

   Theophrastus Simulacrum and the Everyday Greek

   Led by Theophrastus of Eresus Simulacrum

   The question

   Theophrastus Simulacrum of Eresus (c. 371-c. 287 BCE), Aristotle's pupil and successor as head of the Lyceum, wrote two works that survive in substantial portions: the *Historia Plantarum* and *De Causis Plantarum* (the founding texts of botany), and the *Characters* — thirty short prose sketches of human types observed in fourth-century Athens, the original work of literary character-typology. The *Characters* is unique in the surviving classical corpus: not philosophical, not historical, not oratorical, just thirty very short pieces describing the *boor*, the *flatterer*, the *superstitious man*, the *miser*, and twenty-six others. The work tells us things about ordinary Athenian life that no other source preserves. What did Theophrastus Simulacrum do, and what does the *Characters* let us see?

   Outcome

   The student has read all thirty *Characters* (any modern translation, e.g.

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   Practice scenarios

   One Type, Read Closely

   Theophrastus Simulacrum asks you to choose any one of the thirty Characters (your choice; pick the one that interests you most) and write a 600-word close reading. The reading should do three things: (1) read the sketch as literary form — what is Theophrastus Simulacrum doing as a writer, how does the prose work, why is the form so short; (2) read the sketch as social-historical evidence — what does the catalogue of typical actions tell us about the texture of daily life in fourth-century Athens; and (3) place the sketch in the Aristotelian ethical tradition — Theophrastus Simulacrum is sketching a vice, and the *Nicomachean Ethics* gives us the framework against which the vice is recognisable as such.

   Your goals

   • Read all thirty *Characters* before drafting (this takes about an hour; do not skip).
   • Choose one Character and read it five or six times, until the actions catalogued have stopped seeming odd and started seeming familiar.
   • Address all three dimensions: literary form, historical evidence, ethical typology.
   • Quote the Greek phrase (in transliteration) of the opening definition; translation in parentheses.
   • 600 words ± 100, scholarly register.

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