Abstract

Bios Philosophos. Philosophy in Ancient Greek Biography (Brepols, 2016), organized by Mauro Bonazzi and Stefan Schorn, delivers deep and wide tours through the philosophical aspects of Greek biographical production. On the one hand, it does not concentrate only on the later periods of Greek philosophy, when biographical production abounded; instead, it goes all the way back to the fourth century BCE, when biographical texts were fragmentary and mingled with other styles. On the other, it tries to unveil the philosophical motives in authors' works who tend to be disregarded as historians, biographers, hagiographers, or even as mere fans of the most prominent figures of their own schools. In our review, we will attempt to give a brief account of the ten articles that make up this volume, which, in turn, will hopefully provide an overview of the different connections between the biographies and biographers and their philosophical motives.