Sententiae Menandri [Maxims of Menander]

Literary/ Cultural Context Essay

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In ancient Greek education, textbooks were an integral part of the acculturation process of what was in many cases (especially in Egypt) a culturally and ethnically diverse student body. School manuals in antiquity very often took the form of

gnômologia

, i.e. anthologies of gnomic sayings, and were used, among other things, as chrestomathies to improve reading and writing skills. Traces of

gnômologia

have been identified as early as the third century B.C., and it may even be that comparable manuals were already in use by sophists in the fifth century B.C.

Possibly the best-known of these gnômologia is the so-called Sententiae Menandri (Greek: Menandrou Gnômai Monostikhoi), or Maxims of Menander. This is the collective title conventionally attributed to several collections of pithy

1070 words

Citation: Liapis, Vaios. "Sententiae Menandri [Maxims of Menander]". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 December 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5763, accessed 13 December 2024.]

5763 Sententiae Menandri [Maxims of Menander] 2 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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