Lillian Larsen: Evagrius in the Classroom

In introducing his summative collection of Progymnasmata – a spectrum of school compendia that flowered in late antiquity (Atlanta 2003), George Kennedy argues that in order to understand the structural character of emergent ancient literature, one must begin in the classroom. Following Kennedy, this presentation examines the gnomic sentences attributed to Evagrius within a wider didactic and rhetorical frame. Highlighting the integral role accorded gnomic content in ancient education, it explores the particular merits of reading extant compilations of Evagrian source material through a classroom lens.