Fra teatro e oratoria: il mito di Busiride

The myth of Busiris has been the subject of theatrical performances and a homonymous Isocrates’ prayer. Compared to treatment of the history of the comic poets and Euripides’ Busiris, of which very few fragments have been received, Isocrates offers a new vision of the legendary king, criticizing the arguments of the rhetor Policrates. The rhetorical analysis of the text leads to reflections on the application of praise’s topoi and on the vision of the isocratean paideia. Through the exaltation of the institutions and laws of Egyptian civilization, and of its founder, Isocrates also praises Athens, to whom he intends to offer, in a particular historical moment, a cultural, ideal and moral support with his speech.