Characters

Theophrastus' Characters is a notoriously difficult text. It has, as James Diggle remarks in the introduction to his new edition, "probably the most corrupt manuscript tradition in all of Greek literature" (20). We do not even know what this collection of character types is for; attempts to place it within the scheme of recognizable genres in classical literature have ranged from the jocular to the narrowly pragmatic. For instance, Jebb famously argued, in his best clubbish manner, that Theophrastus wrote the portraits merely to amuse himself and his friends Others have suggested that they are meant as rough sketches for dramatic or oratorical use, a key for "Menander . . . and his fellows.