At Thes. 17 Plutarch states that, according to Simonides, Theseus’ ship was steered by the Trojan Phereclus, and in case of success it was to raise not a white sail, but a purple one, colored with the dye obtained from the holm-oak (pace Orlando Poltera). Through both these details the poet emphasized the Athenians’ sailing inexperience at that early time, when they still used the ‘terrestrial’ dye rather than the Phoenician purple, extracted from a sea shell. This paper dwells on this dye’s peculiarities, by referring to modern scientific explanations as well as to the several ancient opinions on the matter.
University of Florence, Italy
Titolo del capitolo
La vela di Teseo e la tintura di Simonide
Autori
Angelo Casanova
Lingua
Italiano
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0824-6.22
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2025
Copyright
© 2025 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
I miei scritti su Plutarco
Sottotitolo del libro
Raccolti, riveduti e corretti con bibliografia unificata
Autori
Angelo Casanova
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
366
Anno di pubblicazione
2025
Copyright
© 2025 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0824-6
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0823-9
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0824-6
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0825-3
Collana
Studi e saggi
ISSN della collana
2704-6478
e-ISSN della collana
2704-5919