Publication Details

Abstract

The paper deals with Antisthenes’ accounts of Homer as well as with the role the philosopher played in the thought on the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries before Kr. In its first part the author gives an outline of Antisthenes’ life and work. The second part shows the development of the critical approaches to Homer’s depicting Gods from Hecait to the sophists. The third part deals with Antisthenes’ accounts of Homer in Aiax and Odysseus, pointing to the Socratic character of questioning the virtue. Drawing on further reports about the interpretations of Homer the author shows the place occupied by Antisthenes within the tradition of the allegoric accounts of myths (part 4). The interpretations of particular fragments provide a basis for the author’s argumentation, according to which Antisthenes’ early writings deal with the sophistic themes in an innovative, i.e. Socratic way, which later had been adopted and deve loped by the cynics and stoics of the Helenistic period. The paper shows Antisthenes’ approach to interpreting Homer as different from that of Plato, although both of them declared their adherence to the Socratic tradition.