This is the first extended study in English of Theophrastus' "Characters", one of the briefest but also most influential works to survive from classical antiquity. Since the seventeenth century, the "Characters" has served as a model and an inspiration for authors as diverse as La Bruyere, Thackeray, George Eliot and Elias Canetti. This study aims to locate Theophrastus and his "Characters" with respect to the political and philosophical worlds of Athens in the late fourth century, focusing on later imitators in order to provide clues to reading the Theophrastan original. Special attention is...