Theages on Virtue and the Soul

Pseudo-Theages is the anonymous Hellenistic compositor of an ethical treatise transmitted pseudepigraphically under the name of Theages. The historical Theages was a follower of Socrates; he is the attribution mask, not the dated author of this artificial-Doric work.

The compositor is dated fl. c. 150 BCE, within a range of 200–100 BCE. The work presupposes settled Platonic and Aristotelian ethical frameworks, while Centrone's linguistic and doctrinal argument places this group no later than the early first century BCE. The midpoint is approximate rather than an exact dating claim.

The treatise sets tripartite psychē alongside knowledge, dynamis, and proairesis as the three origins of aretē. This places it in the Hellenistic ethical milieu, although the direction of influence between it and Stoicism remains unsettled. It defines dynamis as strength some physios, not as a latent capacity awaiting activation.