Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin

Miriam Griffin is unrivalled as a bridge-builder, between historians of the Graeco-Roman world and students of its philosophies. This volume in her honour brings together seventeen international specialists. Their essays range from Socrates to late antiquity, extending to Diogenes, Cicero, Pliny the Elder, Marcus Aurelius, the Second Sophistic, Ulpian, Augustine, the Neoplatonist tradition, women philosophers, provision for basic human needs, the development of law, the formulation of imperial power, and the interpretation of Judaism and early Christianity. Emperors and drop-outs, media stars and administrators, top politicians and abstruse professionals, even ordinary citizens in their epitaphs, were variously called philosophers. Philosophy could offer those in power moral support or confrontation, a language for making choices or an intellectual diversion, but they might disregard philosophy and get on with the exercise of power. ‘Philosophy’ means ‘love of wisdom’, but what was the power of philosophy?