Abstract

In the best Menippean tradition theDe Consolatione Philosophiaeof Boethius is peppered with quotations from different authors, most notably from the works of Homer. The quotations are generally spoken by Philosophy, and are used to articulate the narrative, e.g. at 1. 4 we find a line fromIliad1. 363 whose application to the f present situation is immediately comprehensible, and would have been appreciated by the average reader. Another similar quotation is that ofIliad12. 176: ⋯ργαλ⋯oν δ⋯ με ταȗτα Өε⋯ν ὣς π⋯ντ' ⋯γoρε⋯ειν at 4. 6. 53. Such uses are very simiar to what one, finds in theApocolocyntosisof Seneca, albeit there used for comic effect. There are also snippets of popular wisdom in the form of an old proverb – though it is one with Menippean associations – and a Pythagorean maxim.