Abstract

The starting point of our thesis is the critical discussion of a concept taken for granted by literary and ancient philosophy scholars. This is the cynic-stoic diatribe, so named because cynical themes would coexist with Stoic ones. Our first step is assessing the accuracy of the widely accepted definition, which makes the connection between the diatribe and a tradition of topics relating to moral popular philosophy. Then we explain our choice to accept and to try to integrate recent scientific acknowledgments which accept the diatribe as a literary genre relating to the spiritual guidance method of the Socratic philosophical schools, with a particularly attentive focus on the relationship between master and disciple. Starting from this controversial genre of Greek origin, we analyze the transition to the Roman period, by first examining the terminological aspect and then the philosophical framing. Among the methods, defined as diatribic, we focus on the only feature which does not appear to be challenged and that for this exact reason could be the basis of the existence of the genre itself: dialogism and the presence of a fictitious interlocutor. We then focus our attention on Seneca's work, and particularly on Letters to Lucilius, where the attempt to create a master-disciple relationship is intensely visible, and in which the presence of a fictitious interlocutor is structurally related to the development of this relationship. Then we discuss the diatribic forms of Roman satire, to reach Lucilius', Horace's and Persius' cases. A brief presentation is finally devoted to the analysis of relations between the diatribe, the Second Sophistic and the religious preaching.