Short description:

This book offers and introduction to Characters, a series of thirty brief sketches of character types drawn from urban life in ancient Athens written by Theophrastus.

Long description:

This book presents an introduction to the Characters, a collection of thirty amusing descriptions of character types who lived in Athens in the fourth century BCE. The author of the work, Theophrastus, was Aristotle's colleague, his immediate successor and head of his philosophical school for thirty-five years. Pertsinidis' lively, original and scholarly monograph introduces Theophrastus as a Greek philosopher. It also outlines the remarkable influence of the Characters as a literary work and?provides a detailed discussion of the work's purpose and its connection with?comedy, ethics and rhetoric.

"With this book, Pertsinidis offers the broader reading public a friendly, clear and vivid introduction to what is indeed one of the most influential texts of classical literature. This book will be very useful for students in classics as well as anyone else with an interest in the ancient world. It contains everything that a general reader needs to know before taking the decision to delve systematically into Theophrastus? text." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review 

Table of Contents:

Sources and abbreviations; Preface; Introduction; 1. Theophrastus: his life, works and character; 2. Before and after Theophrastus? Characters; 3. The Characters as a comedy of manners; 4. Behaving badly: ethics and the Characters; 5. Style, delivery and the role of character in rhetoric; 6. Epilogue: conclusions and implications; Index