or revealed a virtuous character), or in some cases “go and do otherwise.” To be sure, there was some overlap of features and aims between biography and history, or between biography and moral philosophy, or between biography and encomium, but one could still tell the difference between a life and a tract of moral philosophy. The point is, as R. Burridge stresses, “Ancient βιος was a flexible genre having strong relationships with history, encomium and rhetoric, moral philosophy and the concern for
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