Tradizione, ricezione e rivalutazione simbolica del dramma greco-latino nel pensiero di Epitteto e Marco Aurelio. Parte prima: Epitteto

In his essay Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (pp. 8-9), E. R. Dodds briefly highlights the fortune of the ‘comparison […] of the world to a stage and men to actors or marionettes’ in the Greco-Roman philosophical tradition, especially amongst the Stoics. Moving from this intuition and wishing to deepen its assumptions, this paper aims to investigate the relationship between the exponents of late Roman Stoicism (Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, with some references to Musonius Rufus) and the ancient and contemporary dramatic tradition. It will argue that the Stoics quote and interpret dramatic texts to support and sustain their philosophical arguments, and that the concept of ‘theatre’ has a vast symbolic and metaphorical use in their writings and meditations. The first part of this essay (the second one, concerning the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, is forthcoming) focuses on the “theatrical aspects” in the thought of Epictetus and his master Musonius Rufus.