Reference edition:

Altercatio Hadriani Augusti et Epicteti Philosophi, by Lloyd William Daly and Walther Suchier, Urbana (Illinois) 1939.

The Altercatio is preserved in a dozen manuscripts dated between the 15th and 17th centuries, always together with the Notitia dignitatum. Only 4 are useful for a critical reconstruction of the text and they all descend, independently, from a lost 9th-century archetype, from the Speyer Chapter Library, which was still preserved until the 16th century.

The text was published for the first time in the 16th century and various editions were then produced, not always of good quality. It is not certain what the original title of the dialogue was: both Altercatio and Disputatio are found in the mss., both suitable for the content. The editions all report Altercatio.

The work consists of 73 questions posed by the emperor Hadrian, to which the philosopher Epictetus answers. It is not known whether there was originally a preface; however, it has not survived and the dialogue begins ex abrupto with the words Adrianus dixit, which precede all the questions, while the answers are introduced by Epictetus dixit. The questions are of various kinds and not all classifiable: in part they can be considered short enigma, others are requests for definition, which often take the form of a metaphor or simile. Their general character has a cynical undertone.

Daly believes that the dialogue has not survived in its original form and that there are interpolations, although not clearly identifiable, to which the disorganized character that the sequence of questions has assumed could be attributed. Some appear repeated, even several times. Untangling this matter is extremely difficult and perhaps impossible.

Some of the answers are not original of the Altercatio and the contents can be traced in anecdotes present in other authors or in proverbial sayings (Stobaeus, Plutarch, Pacuvius, etc.); others reproduce verses that are probably taken from some source, not identifiable for us; sometimes analogies with epigraphic texts are found.

The dating is disputed: Schanz in his Geschichte der römischen Literatur indicated the work generically as belonging to the medieval period. Schnabel (1926) instead placed it in the 3rd century, on the basis of the definitions of Caesar (n. 64 publice lucis caput), senatus (n. 65 ornamentum splendor urbis civium), regnum (n. 63 pars deorum) and Rome (n. 67 fons imperii orbis terrarum, mater gentium, rei possessor, Romanorum contubernium, pacis eterne consecratio), which he believed referred to a period preceding Diocletian. With him agrees Daly, who connects the Altercatio with the collection of sayings attributed to Hadrian published under the title Divi Adriani Sententiae et Epistolae in the Corpus Iuris Antejustiniani, transmitted as part of the third book of the Ἑρμηνεύματα of the grammarian Dositheus (3rd century). Although the attribution to Dositheus is doubtful, the collection should also be dated to the beginning of the 3rd century AD. This analogy, together with the observations of Aelius Spartianus in the life of Hadrian about the emperor's habit of discussing with Epictetus and the existence of ioca eius plurima, leads Daly to believe that the Altercatio cannot be dated later than the beginning 4th century; indeed he leans towards the II-III century also on the basis of the decrease in the popularity of Epictetus after that period. However, in a subsequent intervention (1945) Einar Loefstedt, on the basis of linguistic clues, believes that it should be placed no earlier than the fifth century.

The Altercatio was known to Alcuin and is presupposed by the Disputatio Pippini cum Albino, part of whose questions derive from it; some questions are also included in the pseudo-Beda's Excerptiones patrum. The Altercatio then influences the genre of medieval dialogue and in particular the tradition of the Enfant sage, in which the name of Epictetus is variously deformed. [R. Tabacco]