The treatise De liberis educandis attributed to Plutarch

Thesis

The Greek treatise De liberis educandis has been preserved as part of the corpus of Plutarch's Moralia, but is not now generally believed to be the work of Plutarch. It is however of interest as the only complete ancient Greek work on the education of children which has survived.

By far the greater part of the present thesis consists of a line-by-line commentary on the Greek text designed to provide the reader with assistance of all kinds relevant to understanding the work in its ancient context. The commentary is preceded, however, by a brief introduction containing a synopsis, an essay on the style of the treatise, and a list of surviving manuscripts. The essay reviews the style of the work under the headings of organisation, illustrative material, syntax, language and vocabulary, hiatus, and prose-rhythm and clausulae. Since the question of authenticity depends almost entirely upon internal evidence, and predominantly on stylistic considerations, special attention is paid to comparisons with Plutarchan usage.

The De liberis educandis emerges from this study as a handbook containing advice for fathers on how to bring up their children, written by an author of philosophical inclinations but no great depth of thought or literary skill. The quality of the writing is generally inferior to that of Plutarch, with connections, quotations and illustrative material much less naturally and competently managed; and the case against Plutarchan authorship is further confirmed by neutral differences of detail in syntactical usage, vocabulary, the avoidance of hiatus and prose-rhythm, Internal evidence also suggests, however, that the treatise may date from around Plutarch's time, namely the first or second century AD.

Authors: Abbot, NJS

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-n1rba2rpr
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: moralia; Greek education; Plutarch Moralia; Plutarch; treatise; De liberis educandis; education
• Subjects: Plutarch Moralia; De liberis educandis; Education, Greek