But Asclepius also took in hand Aristides’s soul and mind, influencing his psychological and intellectual activities as a teacher (didaskalos), encouraging and advising him in his oratorical practice (Or. 42.11–12; 50.26),31 and introducing him to his illustrious predecessors (Or. 50.24). In the Sacred Tales, Aristides is carrying out a threefold task. Like Helen relating the misfortunes of Odysseus, he is thanking Asclepius by making a selective list (though it could not, in any event, have been exhaustive) of “all the achievements of the Savior, which I have enjoyed to this very day” (Or. 47.1); he is celebrating the god whose manifestations of solicitude he reports; and he is bearing witness to a consummate experience by giving structured form to a collection of notes compiled over a long period (Or. 48.1–4, 8).32
Retracing the history of a personal relationship with a god, and a divine cure, the Sacred Tales tell us of a pilgrimage that brings together a body, a voyage, and a miracle,33 clothed in the religious character of the Second Sophistic. Aristides is both praising a god and talking about himself; or rather, he is talking about himself through his praise of a god.34 In the triangular relationship between his ill health, his god, and his orations,35 he portrays himself as an inspired author, hypocritès, both the god’s voice and actor (Or. 42.12) who claims divine inspiration for his logos. He thus uses this covert strategy of self-promotion36 to build an image of a rhetor who, as a prophet of Asclepius (Or. 50.48), and in the eyes of the Roman authorities, is the “first of the Greeks and supreme in oratory” (Or. 50.87). Apart from the Sacred Tales, the way in which he saw the prestige and consistency of his intellectual career is clearly demonstrated in An Address concerning Asclepius (Or. 42): it was Asclepius who inspired the works that won him plaudits both from people and authorities, friendships with the “divine emperors,” and marks of favour on the part of “the whole Imperial chorus” (Or. 42.11–14).
In formal terms too, the title Hieroi Logoi merits attention. It stakes a claim for the work to be regarded as a manifestation of devotion to Asclepius, with the same degree of legitimacy as ex votos, aretalogical inscriptions, and confessional stelae. Furthermore, it uses a textual form that is generally reserved for aetiological reports of religious activities or ceremonies to talk about its author’s literary work and oratory, along with his psychological, somatic, and intellectual experience, thereby giving a clearly religious tone to what were among the traditional secular aspirations of the Roman Empire’s Greek-speaking elite: oratorical success and honors. The work is also important for its style of presentation of the self, with a narrative based on an anamnesis whose combination of reality and dreams37 goes beyond the mnemotechnics to which the rhetors’ technique has often been reduced.
Though not exactly an autobiography in the generally accepted sense, the Sacred Tales do mark an important stage in the literary history of sensibility and subjectivity.38 They have been given different types of reading—biographical, psychological, psychoanalytic, medical, etc.39 They had no real contemporary equivalent, but nor were they entirely unique. They are related to oneiromancy as it was practiced at the time, and to Marcus Aurelius’s spiritual exercises. They also bring to mind certain Christian accounts of mystical journeys and miraculous healing.40
The image of eloquence and the orator is not set down once and for all in a text manifesto. Far from it! Aristides brandished his conception of the oratorical art like a flag of war. He turned it into a combat that fed into the entire polemical side of his work. To begin with, it was against Plato that he opened the conflict, across the centuries, in order to reply to Socrates’s attacks on rhetoric (Or. 2–4). It was also with different groups of his contemporaries (rival sophists, students, philosophers) that he crossed swords (Or. 28, 33, 34). And finally, he competed with poetry to impose prose in religious hymns (Or. 37–46).
A POLEMIC ACROSS THE CENTURIES: THE PLATONIC DISCOURSES
Aristides’s most serious disagreement was with a philosopher who had lived five centuries before his own time. In response to the attacks elaborated by Plato in the Gorgias, he composed two long orations in defense of rhetoric, and of four great Athenian politicians: Pericles, Cimon, Miltiades, and Themistocles.41 Rhetoric, for him, was no mere shadow (eidôlon) of technê; nor was it marked by the kolakeia that Socrates saw in it (Grg 462b–466a). And in his view, the accusation that the four statesmen had flattered their fellow citizens rather than striving to make them better human beings (Grg 151c–517c) flew in the face of reason and justice.
For Aristides, the stakes were high: it was a question of vindicating rhetoric against philosophy, and showing that oratory could be wholly beneficial to individuals and societies. In order to do so, the tactic he chose was to present Plato, whom he actually admired,42 as nothing less than an unwitting rhetor. He used Platonic terminology and concepts against Plato himself—though sometimes, it has to be said, in a distorted interpretation. He would regularly “construe a sentence in a positive light, where Plato was in fact being critical.”43 Thus he was able to postulate that Plato had a correct conception of rhetoric (Or. 4.8), and could even be termed “the father and teacher of orators” (Or. 2.465).44
In this way, Aristides killed two birds with one stone: he cleared rhetoric of Socrates’s accusations, and he preserved—indeed he co-opted—the prestige of Plato, whose work, he argued, lent itself to a moralistically sophist reading. This was an operation of fundamental importance. By substituting rhetoric for philosophy in the current of intellectual history, he put it forward as the foundation of politics, responsible (like Isocrates’s logos) for maintaining social cohesion and the fundamental possibility of life in common (Or. 2.210), while preventing force from becoming dominant, and also preserving the conditions for constitutional governance (Or. 2.205–234). Rhetoric both creates and, “like some sleepless guard” (Or. 2.401), preserves justice, law, and social life.
What emerges from this defense of speech—and speeches—is a portrait of the orator as a man of virtue (anêr aristos: Or. 2.429) who mirrors the four facets of Platonic virtue: intelligence, moderation, justice, and courage (Or. 2.235–236; 3.597). This political and ethical definition of eloquence as being both practically beneficial and morally instructive is in line with Isocrates’s philosophia and its pedagogical applications;45 to which must be added, in keeping with the Sacred Tales, the religious dimension that allowed Aristides to rediscover Plato via the Phaedrus. Oratory was inspired by the gods, and what for Aristides is real rhetoric could take its place beside prophetic and poetic mania.46
This view of the orator as an individual with a mission47 bears a strong resemblance to the way Aristides saw himself. Like Socrates, in particular, he stood aside from politics.48 In Oration 2.429–433, for example, he describes an era in which political debate no longer makes sense, since “the government is now differently constituted.”
Glory, distinction, and honor accrue to Aristides (Or. 2.430). But he himself is not interested in pandering to the mob, or in monetary gain. He is devoted to rhetoric for its own sake, with Asclepius as “the leader and patron of my life and speech” (Or. 2.429).49 Steeped in rhetoric, he imagines a new version of the Prometheus myth, in which it is not aidôs (mutual respect) and dikê (justice) that make life in society possible, but the oratorical art. This, however, is a gift that is now possessed only by “the best, the noblest, and those with the strongest natures . . . so that at the same time they could save themselves and others.” And thus the myth of Prometheus—he who founded the principles of democratic expression—can be used to justify the domination of an elite. Oratory is no longer characterized by the power of persuasion alone, as Isocrates had it,50 but by a force acting “from the top to the bottom, with orators who prefer law and order to confusion, preach internal as well as external concord, and prevent uproar, disorder, and faction.”51
A POLEMIC IN THE DEBATES OF THE DAY
Aristides’s image of himself and his art casts light on the different polemics in which he engaged with h
is contemporaries. Several of his works (notably Or. 28, 33, and 34) allude to the intellectual debates, jealousies, and quarrels that littered the careers of these men of letters and culture, while also providing insights into his personality. In Or. 28, Concerning a Remark in Passing,52 he answers criticisms that had been directed at him because a hymn to Athena that he recited during an informal meeting of the faithful at the Asclepieum contained some incidental remarks (paraphthegmata) in praise of his own rhetorical and literary merits. He does not recant his words, but claims that they were dictated to him by the goddess herself: in fact, there had been many poets, orators, historians, and philosophers before him who had sung their own praises, and had met with no reproach. On the contrary, they had won approval for their haughty, noble stance.
Oration 28 is illuminating in several respects. It presents pride as something inherent in the Greek character (Or. 28.152); and the “incidental remarks” are a “eulogy of oneself” which, far from being a source of embarrassment, situates Aristides in a prestigious literary lineage. In any case, the numinous nature of the subject indemnifies it against any hint of impropriety.53 Aristides wishes to “lay claim to his rights as an author.”54 In a manner redolent of the Sacred Tales, he adduces divine inspiration as a vindication of his claim to total freedom of expression, and his right to formulate his viewpoint as he sees fit.55
Another aspect of the friction that existed between Aristides and his contemporaries is illustrated by Oration 33, To Those Who Criticize Him because He Does Not Declaim, written in 166/167 as a reply to those of his followers who would have wished him to give them more guidance in the techniques of rhetoric. He finds them insufficiently studious, and once again there is the self-image of someone who affirms that he has always been a “true lover” of orations (Or. 33.19–20), who delivers as many of them as he can, and who is attentive to his followers (Or. 33.21–22, 23).
And in the final polemical oration, Oration 34, Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries (of Oratory), probably written in 166, Aristides talks about the issues that divide the “Atticist” and “Asianist” modes of rhetoric. As a fervent Atticist himself, he criticizes his adversaries for the way they deform and debase the art. Declaiming in a melodic mode, they are like hermaphrodites or eunuchs, lyrists, or courtesans (Or. 34.45–47, 48, and 55). They bow to the whims of the public, like “the chorus leader who made quite a pretty picture by following his chorus” (Or. 34.47). In sum, they are lacking in classical oratory’s essential qualities, reflection, and argumentation (Or. 34.45), which are the sources of its persuasive power and its ability to improve the citizen’s soul (Or. 34.53).56
It is clear that the difference was far from being purely lexical or stylistic. For Aristides, Asianism was a corruption of rhetoric, in the moral sense. Worse still, its deviations from the rules that governed liberal education posed a threat to the established order.
AGAINST THE HEGEMONY OF POETRY
Aristides’s promotion of the religious hymn in prose was another exercise of a polemical nature, in which he set out to renew a literary genre that had up to then been the preserve of poetry. The ten surviving examples by him (Or. 37–46) were composed at different points in his career. Most are addressed to gods (Athena, Heracles, Dionysus, Zeus, Sarapis, Poseidon, Asclepius, and the sons of the latter), but there are two that deal with sacred or “divinized” subjects: the well in Asclepius’s sanctuary and the Aegean sea. They are notable for the literary credo they advance, which is that prose is more appropriate than poetry as a vehicle for hymns in honor of the gods.
Aristides gave this type of discourse a new characteristic form,57 and in the long methodological prologue to his hymn Regarding Sarapis (Or. 45)58 he accords it a privileged status. He discusses the respective merits of poetry and prose in speaking either of or to the gods; and in both cases he finds prose to be more suitable for the purpose. Not that he rejects the idea of hymns in verse out of hand. Poetry has undeniable value (Or. 45.1). But it must be grasped in its totality, not subjected to intellectual or logical analysis. He recognizes the efficacy of poetry, but intends to promote the clarity and truth telling he associates with prose. Its topoi allow it to treat its subjects rigorously, without ornamental epithets or abstruse metaphors; which means that it can attain a high degree of precision (Or. 45.9). Prose is truth, because it does not indiscriminately incorporate the various mythological canons. And finally, although the poets use “metron,” in the technical prosodic sense, they possess neither its literary form, which lays down “the correct, economical use of words and intervals,”59 nor its moral form, which implies a sense of measure such as is indispensable to an accurate vision of the world. In raising the question of religious language, Aristides makes an important contribution to the long-running debate about the relationship between the poetic and the divine.60
Thus is the portrait of the ideal orator completed. Not only is he a beneficiary of divine inspiration, but he is in direct contact with the world of the deities. And there is an oracular character to Aristides’s accounts of his dreams—he sees himself as an intermediary between men and gods. For him, more than an art, rhetoric is a mystical activity, a sacred technê.
A NEW VISION OF THE WORLD
Aristides’s views on the purpose and power of oratory are framed by a world that is under Roman domination, but whose adornments are the cities of Greece and Asia Minor. And this opens up a certain way of looking at his eulogies of cities, which constitute the finest examples of his epideictic work, in particular On Rome (Or. 26), no doubt composed in 144,61 and the Panathenaikos (Or. 1), celebrating a city that had been reinvigorated by Hadrian, and which was also delivered there, possibly during the Great Panathenaea of 155. The two orations could well be seen as a diptych, contrasting the cultural power of Athens with the political and administrative power of Rome.62 But beyond this demarcation of attributes, one might also look at the exchanges that took place between the two representations.
At first sight, the Panathenaikos is an extended historical overview of Athens from the time of the autochthons to that of Alexander, then moving on to Aristides’s own day. And in this respect it deviates from the usual topos of the eulogy, with chronology taking precedence over axiology.63 But this history is in reality an immobile history, being that of a people seen not as individuals but as a collective entity whose virtues derive from an original philanthropia. This opens up an interpretive schema in which the history of the Greeks is seen as a twofold movement involving, first, refuge and protection for other peoples (and here, Aristides is being faithful to Isocrates, and to the tradition of the funeral oration), and second, the propagation of Greek values across the world. So Athens is both philanthropic and (culturally, at least) hegemonic, and can now view itself in the light of a new dunamis: its real empire is not ephemeral, or limited by the action of three hundred triremes that win the occasional victory (Or. 1.322), but embodied in its culture, and the Greek language, with their subtle but irresistible aura (Or. 1.322–329). Presenting the city as an incarnation of refinement and civilization, untouched by the vagaries of history, Aristides makes it clear that Hellenism, by its very nature, is not to be evaluated according to contingent, temporal considerations. The values celebrated by Pericles are still there, but they have shifted their nature and become imperial values, centered on concord and consensus.64
Where the Panathenaikos sets Athens firmly within the Roman world, On Rome is a vibrant tribute to the projection of political, military, and administrative power. But what it describes is not an entirely new dispensation. And Aristides is clear about this: Rome simply took up where Greece left off. Governing the world as a single polis (Or. 26.36), it has imposed a type of order that it defines as a “common democracy of the world,” under the authority of “one man, the best ruler and director” (Or. 26.60). Rome sees Greece as its forebear, to be respected as such; it also enlightens the barbarians (Or. 26.96) and showers gifts on cities, “with an equal generosity toward
all” (Or. 26.98), true to the founding ethos of Athens.
Rome’s destiny, in conclusion, is to historicize the perfection of Greece. The world can identify and judge itself only through Greek concepts. Rome may be the dominant influence, but the template remains Greek. Aristides’s eulogies, while reflecting the idea of a distinction between a civilizing power and a ruling power, also touch on the loans and borrowings that have taken place between them, with the implication that in the end they are interdependent.
It is difficult to gauge the true nature of Aristides’s loyalty to Rome.65 It was a sentiment he frequently expressed, for example in his exchanges with the emperors, or in the prayers for the perpetuation of the imperial dynasty that round out a number of his orations (e.g., Or. 26.109; 30.28; 46.42). But this does not nullify the lucidity of various remarks he makes about the situation of Athens and Greece under the Roman Empire (Or. 1.332), or a few of his silences that speak louder than words.66 And like Plutarch, or Dio of Prusa, he notes that Rome habitually reserves a right of intervention in the affairs of others.
Between Aristides’s acceptance of the Roman political order and his reverence for the Greek past, are there inconsistencies, or even contradictions? The fact is that his vision of the world was not predicated on a logic of either distinctive or exclusive values, but came about as an accretion of viewpoints. Each of his works brought together a different combination of qualities. And the qualities in question were essentially those of the world as he found it.
The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic Page 42