Elio Aristide nella scuola tardoantica, commentari e trattati di retorica

The article offers an overview of the testimonies about Aelius Aristides’ reception in the didactic context of the late antique schools of rhetoric. After analysing the major issues relating Aristides’ presence in the rhetorical treatises (Hermogenes, Menander Rhetor, the ps.-Aristidean ars), the paper focuses in particular on the (lost) commentaries to his mostly widespread works, namely the Panathenaic and the Platonic orations. From the scholia to these speeches it is possible to obtain some information about how these commentaries were, though the annotations which can be attributed with certainty to specific commentators (Metrophanes, Menander, Athanasius, Sopater, and Zosimus) are scarce. In a last section of the paper, some encomia featuring in Libanius’ epistle 1262 and Synesius’ Dio are discussed as far as they resonate with some remarks on Aristides’ style found in scholia, prolegomena, and rhetorical treatises.