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Résumé :

Abstract The letters of Phalaris are among the letter collections assembled by Rudolf Hercher in his, ‘Epistolographi graeci’, published in 1873. They differ from other collections in that volume in the size of the corpus ( 148 letters ) and the breadth of the manuscript tradition ( more than 132 manuscripts ). Moreover, the number and the order of the letters vary greatly from one manuscript to another. These characteristics explain why there is no modern critical edition of the letters of Phalaris. This paper addresses a methodological issue: how can we get a comprehensive view of the transmission of the letters of Phalaris? It examines these letters from the perspective of the collection, given that the letters of Phalaris are often transmitted within manuscripts that combine several corpora of letters, thus forming large epistolary collections. This paper shows to what extent the results obtained by the editors of other epistolary texts can be applied to the letters of Phalaris and what is gained, on a literary level, by replacing these letters in their context of transmission.