La paternità dell'opera

This paper considers the several hypotheses advanced by modern scholars on the authorship of [Xenophon]’s Constitution of Athens. Many scholars have tried to identify the author of this work with members of the cultural elite – among whom the historians Xenophon and Thucydides, and the sophists Antiphon and Critias –, or with politicians such as Thucydides son of Melesias, Phrynichus, Cleon, and more recently Andocides (with regard to the history of classical scholarship, it is worth noting that all the aforesaid stances (with the only exception of the last one) had already been proposed by 19th century scholars). However, no one of these attributions can be strictly demonstrated, although Andocides’ name, recently suggested by Ramirez Vidal, opens new interesting perspectives for further research. The difficulty in finding a satisfactory solution to the issue of authorship explains why some modern scholars prefer to regard the work as anonymous.