An original history of Greek thought, from the Presocratics to the Stoics via Plato and Aristotle, presented in a whole new light.

Carlo Diano was the most important classical philologist of the past century. He had a extraordinary knowledge of Greek culture and society, and a prodigious memory that absorbed all forms of Greek. He also had a prolific imagination in philosophy and an intuition for the shape of the mind. With all these sophisticated instruments he ventured into exploring the dark side of Greece and, in these focused and intense few pages, he gave us the most original history of Greek thought from the Presocratics to the Stoics via Plato and Parmenides, Epicurus and Aristotle, all presented in a whole new light.

«Greek civilization is so big» – writes Pietro Citati speaking of Diano’s other great book, Forma ed evento – «precisely because it is marked by so many mental shapes: they fight without mercy , they want everything to themselves, until the invisible hand of a god settles them into a higher unit».

Carlo Diano (1902-1974) has been one of the most important scholars of the ancient world and has taught Greek Literature at the University of Padova. He is the author of critical essays that span from philology to literature and philosophy. Among his works is Forma ed evento (1952, n. ed. 1993).