Graeco-Aegyptiaca S05E02: Lecture by Lucia Athanassaki

This paper looks at the reports of Strabo, Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch on their contemporary civic life in Alexandria and explores their lack of enthusiasm even for the incontestable beauty of the city and its bastions of Hellenic culture, the Library and the Museum. The tripartite discussion turns first at Dio’s aggressive eloquence in Or. 32 and then at Plutarch’s enigmatic silence which is interpreted in the light of some precious glimpses into Alexandrian life he offers in the Moralia and the Lives, especially the Life of Antony. In the third section I correlate Dio’s and Plutarch’s insights with Strabo’s account and offer my conclusions.

The Graeco-Aegyptiaca lectures are organized by the UCL Department of Greek and Latin, London and the Palladion, Budapest. The series started in January 2022 with papers given monthly by established scholars in the field of ancient Egyptian and Greek cultural relations.

Recordings of our previous lectures are accessible on the Palladion website.