LA SELEZIONE DEI FRAMMENTI COMICI NELLA VITA DI PERICLE DI PLUTARCO

The paper examines Plutarch's criteria for selecting the comic fragments, discussing their content: Pericles' physical appearance, his alleged sexual intemperance, his relationship with Aspasia, his assimilation to Zeus (linked to eloquence, but concealing an accusation of tyranny), democratic imperialism, inefficiency, responsibility for the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, and the strategy he followed (which brought him accusations of cowardice). The conclusion one comes to is that for Plutarch the comedians are almost always a tool for documenting the criticism of the opposition to Pericles: they are, so to speak, the 'black' side of the biography, which the biographer does not embrace (indeed sometimes openly distances himself from), but makes available to his readers.