Abstract

This volume presents some discourses (or. 54, 55, 70, 71 and 72) written by the orator and philosopher Dio of Prusa (about 40 - after 111 AD), who was also called Chrysostomos ("Golden Mouth"). Of these texts there have never been detailed commentaries up to now. They draw an image of the philosopher not as an abstract thinker but as a new Odysseus, Heracles, but also as a new Socrates or Diogenes, who purposely interferes in people's affairs and by his mere appearance and demeanour provokes them and prompts them to rethink and change their lives. They also outline an ideal of practical ethics to which Dio himself felt obliged; this ideal can still have an effect far beyond Dio’s times and the diverse society of the Roman Empire.