La prassi dell'autoepitomazione in Epicuro e Galeno

Taking an illuminating passage from Andreas Vesalius’ Epitome of his De humani corporis fabrica as a starting point, I show in this paper how Epicurus and Galen used the technique of self-epitomisation to effectively convey information to different categories of recipients. Unlike Galen, Epicurus does not directly criticise the genre of didactic compendia – rather, he offers a reflection on the genre and attempts to illustrate its formal characteristics. While Galen distinguishes between «epitome», «introduction» and «treatise», Epicurus combines the functions of epitome and introduction into a single text type. In self-epitomising, both Epicurus and Galen revise their own writings according to specific communicative principles, strive to build up a reading canon, and aim at clarity of instruction by observing the correspondence between λέξεις and πράγματα. The hypothesis is put forward that Galen, despite his fundamentally critical attitude towards Epicurean philosophy, may have regarded Epicurus as a model in terms of strategies of didactic communication.