‘The Story of Prince Ariamène’

‘The Story of Prince Ariamène’ appears in Scudéry’s 1692 Moral Dialogues [Entretiens de morale], where it is read together by a group of friends, who then discuss it. Drawing on a variety of sources, particularly Plutarch and Diogenes Laertius, ‘The Story of Prince Ariamène’ is a historical fiction set in ancient Persia during the reign of Darius the Great, centred on the succession of his two sons, Ariamène and Xerxes. Democritus is a guest at Darius’s court. In this story, the women of the court ask Democritus many questions about his atomist philosophy; Scudéry establishes atomism as at once dangerous and libertine for its espousal of chance in creation (echoing ‘On Uncertainty’) and makes Democritus a model philosopher, in that he also knows how to talk to women and non-philosophers. One of the women of the court, Amestris, asks Democritus to write her a treatise on butterflies, which is presented alongside poems about butterflies, by a different courtier, that prompt a short poetic exchange. Despite his popularity, Democritus is eventually encouraged to leave the court as Darius is afraid his ideas might prove too dangerous.

Contributors

Helena Taylor

(author)

Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at University of Exeter

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5683-7967

Helena Taylor is Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Exeter. Her research focuses on the intellectual and literary history of early modern France, particularly the seventeenth century: she is interested in cultures of learning, women's varied intellectual practices and their reception, classical reception, cultural quarrels, and translation studies. Her first book, The Lives of Ovid in Seventeenth-Century Culture (OUP, 2017) examines the reception of the life of the ancient Roman poet Ovid in 17th-century French culture. Her second book, Women Writing Antiquity: Gender and Learning in Early Modern France (OUP, 2024), was written thanks to a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, and was awarded an Honourable Mention in the Society for the Study of Early Modern Women and Gender Book Prize. She is the co-editor of Ovid in French: Reception by Women from the Renaissance to the Present (OUP, 2023); and Women and Querelles in Early Modern France (a special issue of Romanic Review, 2021). Helena is currently leading a five-year project, Cultures of Philosophy: Women Writing Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, originally awarded as a European Research Council Horizon Europe Starting Grant in the 2022 round (€1.5 million) and now funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee [grant number EP/Y006372/1].