Abstract

It is in the very nature of classicizing texts to promote an idea of the "Greek" as objective and unchanging over the centuries. Using the example of Plutarch's DeAlexandriFortunaautVirtute, a set of epideictic speeches in which Alexander the Great appears as a philosopher who civilizes barbarians, this paper attempts to look beneath the pro-Hellenic veneer of imperial Greek writing by considering ways in which it can mask a sympathy with "Roman" ideas—that is, ideas that are typically by this time either credited to Romans (whether or not originally inspired by Greek ideas) or used to describe Romans in non-classicizing contexts.