Bittersüße Pfeile. Protreptische Rhetorik und platonische Philosophie in Lukians Nigrinus

After 150 years of intensive investigation about Lucian's Nigrinus, the research is still largely inconclusive. All essential issues concerning the interpretation of this enigmatic text remain to be unresolved. In this analysis, Lucian's text will be interpreted as a commentary to Plato's arguments bout rhetoric in the Phaedrus. As a consequence, the relation between rhetoric and philosophy emerges as the central theme of Nigrinus. In this sense, Lucian focuses on the platonic definition of rhetoric as psychagogia and analyzes the dialectical and psychological art of protreptic discourse.