Nella rete. Il caso della “Pleiade” alessandrina

After a brief overview of the concept of “network” in Greek literature, considered in particular as a “network of intellectuals/lettered men”, the article focuses on a network that sources attest to actually existed: a group of tragedians, active in Early 3rd century Alexandria, Egypt, and called “the Pleiad”. The article examines the surviving sources on these tragedians and adds other historical-philological elements useful for reconstructing the map of the relationships between the “Pleiad” and the literary context of 3rd century Alexandria. In the end, considering some elements of incompatibility between the figures of tragedians of the Pleiad and the constitution of a circle that actually existed, it is shown how that of the “Pleiad” was a fictitious network built by the grammarians with the aim of exalting the Ptolemaic court.