Musonius’ Nero. A pseudo-Lucianic Dialogue on the Philosopher and the Tyrant

This paper analyses the pseudo-Lucianic dialogue entitled ‘Nero or on the digging of the Isthmus’. This text has been generally neglected by scholars: there is neither a critical edition nor a commentary on it; it pays the price for its complex textual history and its authorship. The aim of this paper is not to partake in its often debated authorship; instead, it will focus on the character of the Stoic philosopher Musonius Rufus. The dialogue is set on the island of Gyara, where Musonius himself was exiled, and it describes Musonius and a certain Menecrates, who comment upon Nero’s decision to stop digging through the Isthmus of Corinth. Musonius Rufus, who is imagined to have been one of the prisoners working on the project, plays the role of the defiant philosopher. Menecrates is usually considered to be a fictional character. However, considering the historicity of Musonius, it is probable that Menecrates is also a historical person, possibly the trendy lyre-player mentioned by Suetonius (Nero 30.2) and particularly appreciated by Nero (cf. Petron. 73.1; D.C. 63.1). The dialogue is modelled on the archetypical comparison between the tyrant and the philosopher, where the latter comes out as the winner. The most notable example is the altercation between Diogenes and Alexander the Great; however, the pseudo-Lucianic Nero alters the model because the tyrant, Nero, is absent from the scene and, at the end of the dialogue, the announcement of his death formalises the defeat of the tyrant. The dialogue Nero is, therefore, enlightening not only for the reception of Nero in the period of the so-called second sophistic but also provides valuable insight into the figure of Musonius Rufus, who is finally able to take his revenge on Nero’s tyrannical hostility to philosophy.