Author: Koester, Elena
Title: Falsche Freunde: der captator als dystopischer Gegenentwurf des idealen amicus
Review/Collection: "Ciceroniana online", NS 1, 2
Year edition: 2017
Pages: 325-342
Keywords: Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy
Description: Cicero wrote about the personal, philosophical, and socio-political aspects of amicitia in many of his wide-ranging works not only in his Laelius de amicitia. In the current study, I focus on a passage of the Paradoxa Stoicorum (39,3-4) and introduce two opposing terms, captator and captatio, to analyse Cicero’s understanding of amicitia. On the one hand, both terms derive from reality of Roman life; on the other hand, they developed historically in various literary genres. Cicero was therefore able to make use of their connoted semantics. In the Paradoxa, the captator becomes the antithesis of the amicus, and Cicero links the hope of inheritance with the officia and benevolentia a designated heir had to give. In Cicero’s view, an amicus would not behave like this, but a captator would, because he is a slave to his own greed. For Cicero, the decisive factor is the motivation, the inner attitude of the heirs the reason why they offered laborious and expensive services and favours. From a comparison of the two ideal types – amicus and captator – arises a refinement of Cicero’s understanding of amicitia. [Abstract dal sito della rivista]
Works:
Link: https://doi.org/10.13135/2532-5353/2504
Author initials: Koester 2017
Title: Falsche Freunde: der captator als dystopischer Gegenentwurf des idealen amicus
Review/Collection: "Ciceroniana online", NS 1, 2
Year edition: 2017
Pages: 325-342
Keywords: Philosophie - Filosofia - Philosophy
Description: Cicero wrote about the personal, philosophical, and socio-political aspects of amicitia in many of his wide-ranging works not only in his Laelius de amicitia. In the current study, I focus on a passage of the Paradoxa Stoicorum (39,3-4) and introduce two opposing terms, captator and captatio, to analyse Cicero’s understanding of amicitia. On the one hand, both terms derive from reality of Roman life; on the other hand, they developed historically in various literary genres. Cicero was therefore able to make use of their connoted semantics. In the Paradoxa, the captator becomes the antithesis of the amicus, and Cicero links the hope of inheritance with the officia and benevolentia a designated heir had to give. In Cicero’s view, an amicus would not behave like this, but a captator would, because he is a slave to his own greed. For Cicero, the decisive factor is the motivation, the inner attitude of the heirs the reason why they offered laborious and expensive services and favours. From a comparison of the two ideal types – amicus and captator – arises a refinement of Cicero’s understanding of amicitia. [Abstract dal sito della rivista]
Works:
Link: https://doi.org/10.13135/2532-5353/2504
Author initials: Koester 2017
