The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  2.“Wer sich das prunkvolle Auftreten der Rhetoren und Sophisten des 2. und 3. Jahrhunderts n. Chr., wie es in den Lebensbeschreibungen des Philostrat geschildert ist, vergegenwärtigt und sich dazu erinnert, dass der neugefundene Vortagssaal ebenso wie die Exedra aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach von dem berühmten ephesischen Sophisten Flavius Damianus erbaut worden ist, der wird verstehen, dass beim Bau des Auditoriums ein so prächtiger Rahmen für die Person des Vortragenden vorgesehen wurde.”

  3.Oliver 1953 suggests that the speech was delivered in the Athenaeum, but writes on the assumption that this complex was on the Palatine and well before its actual location was rediscovered; cf. also Jarratt 2016, 218, who imagines a grand urban setting, but notes, with Pernot 2008, 188, that Aristides gives no hint of this architecture in his speech.

  CHAPTER 13

  1.Cf. the epigraphic material collected by Robert 1948, 29–34, on the men who were able to plead for their province dia tên en logois aretên kai tên peri tou nomou empeirian.

  2.On the two forms of declamation, cf. Russell 1983, chaps. 5 and 6.

  3.Puech 2002.

  4.Pernot 1993, 14n9. Cf. Amato, Roduit, and Steinrück 2006, v–vi; Malosse and Schouler 2009, 162–163; Quiroga 2007, 34; Van Hoof 2010, 213.

  5.Cf. Pernot 2010a on Callinicus and 2010b on Philodemus, cited later.

  CHAPTER 14

  1.The philosopher mentioned at Or. 31.122 is often taken to be Musonius Rufus, but this is not conclusive. Whitmarsh 2001, 137n16 presents a balanced summary of the evidence.

  2.Compare with Philostratus’s account of the “Heracles of Herodes” (called Sostratus in Lucian’s Demonax 1), who claims that he received the best education from the interior of Attica, as it preserves the purest strain of Hellenism in contrast to the more diluted versions found in Athens, which has been corrupted by the presence of barbarian foreigners (VS 552–554).

  3.A useful parallel here is Longus’s Daphnis and Chloe, in which the naive perspectives of the rustic protagonists are contrasted with those of the more knowing audience. See Whitmarsh 2001, 101–105, with further references.

  4.For example, Lucian’s On the Syrian Goddess, which defamiliarizes the audience’s sense of foreign and familiar through unsettling the author’s (and their own) cultural positioning between Syrian and Greek (Elsner 2001; Goldhill 2002, 78–82). Similarly, Apuleius describes himself as a foreign, inexperienced Latin speaker in the prologue of the Metamorphoses (1.1.5), but when addressing his North African countrymen at his trial, he claims his real crime is being educated in Latin and Greek (Apology 4.1).

  CHAPTER 16

  1.Ramírez de Verger, 1973, 115–126, uses three topics to show the proximity between Fronto and the Second Sophistic: the use of adoxography, the affinity for fabulous stories, and archaic terminology. I would like to thank warmly K. Coghlan for his help in the translation of this paper.

  2.The letters on the trial of Herodes (Ad Marcum 3.2–3.6) are quite mutilated: thus, it is hard to know what was the point of contention; on the trial, cf. Fleury 2003, 86–97; 2006a, 136–139; Van den Hout 1999, 94–97. On the consolation Fronto wrote for Herodes, Ad Marcum 2.1, cf. Fleury 2006b, 77–81.

  3.“Who pray prevents us from painting-in much colour from the paint-box of our friend Favorinus?” (Haines 1919–1920, 1:49). All translations are those of Haines 1919–1920; the titles of the letters are from Van den Hout 1988. Van den Hout 1999, 496 sees this Favorinus as an owner of a beauty parlour. It is more likely that Fronto speaks of the sophist, cf. Barigazzi 1966, 140; Pernot 1993, 535.

  4.In another letter (Ad Marcum 2.11), Marcus Aurelius recalls his audition of Greek orators in the theater in Naples. The letter is full of innuendos, but the same negative attitude is discernible. On those judgments, cf. Fleury 2012.

  5.The young Polemon had ceased intemperance and debauchery the day when, still tipsy, he stepped in the classroom of Xenocrates while the philosopher was talking about temperance. We can find the same story in Diogenes Laertius 4.16; Lucian, Bis accusatus 16; and August. Ep. 104.2. On the way Fronto uses this fable, cf. Fleury 2006a.

  6.Boulanger 1968, 87–94, after studying the two speeches that we have by Polemon, concludes that Marcus Aurelius has wandered in his judgment. Favreau Linder 2004 rightly nuances Boulanger’s conclusions by arguing that Polemon’s declamations use sobriety and passion and can therefore match Marcus Aurelius’s remarks.

  7.Peratticus seems to be the translation for ὑπεραττικός. Atticism is mentioned only three times in the Frontonian corpus: once, in a marginal note to Ad Antoninum 3.2.5, and once, it comes under Marcus Aurelius’s pen, Additamentum Epistularum 7.2, the last occurrence is in a letter written by Fronto, Ad Marcum 2.3.5. If we look at occurrences of the word in contemporary literature (Lucian, Lexiphanes 25; Demon. 26; Philostr. V A 1.17), it is always seen as a negative feature of authors or philosophers; cf. Swain 1996, 82–83. On Atticism and style, see chapter 4 in this volume.

  8.Except for this occurrence, the word is used just one more time (De eloquentia 4.10), likewise in a letter that compares philosophy and rhetoric: “contemni denique et nullo honore esse rhetora uideas; obseruari autem et omnibus officiis coli dialecticos” (“In a word, you could see that the rhetorician is despised and of no account, while the dialecticians are courted and treated with every respect”; Haines 1919–1920, 2:79).

  9.Ad Marcum 2.2.4, 4.3.3; Ad Antoninum 1.2.6, 3.8.2; cf. Cugusi 1983, 262; Portalupi 1961, 39f.; Schwierczina 1925; Zetzel 1974. It is nevertheless clear that, in the structure of Ad Marcum 2.2, the remark made in paragraph 4 on Marcus Aurelius’s ability in writing letters, where Fronto mentions relaxed and Ciceronian conversation, is the loose logical link that leads to the Ciceronian rhetor Polemon.

  10.NA 2.26, 13.29, 19.8, 19.10, 19.13. On the relations of Fronto and Aulus Gellius, cf. Baldwin 1973, Pellini 1912, and more recently, Garcea and Lomanto 2004 and Sacerdoti 2003.

  11.Indeed, in all the chapters where Fronto is a character, the answer to lexical problems is found in pre-Ciceronian writers.

  12.On the vindictive nature of the sophists in Philostratus, see, inter alia, Bowersock 1969, 89–100; Whitmarsh 2005, 37–40. On Polemon, see Ad Marcum 2.2.5 and 2.10.

  13.Although we may think that some letters were written for a larger audience than the imperial family, such as the treatises in epistolary form (De eloquentia, De orationibus), the small diffusion of the letters in antiquity seems to show that the publication was not Fronto’s doing, nor that of Marcus Aurelius, and that the edition of the letters must have been posterior to the death of both correspondents. Cova 2004 has put forward the attractive hypothesis of an editor, Fronto’s descendant, who would have put the corpus together to rehabilitate the family after Victorinus’s forced suicide. This type of rehabilitation can also be seen in one more occasion, see Mathieu 1994.

  14.Pflaum 1964, 547, 560: Pflaum considers that Fronto himself was the publisher of his letters and that is why he tries to demonstrate the equilibrium in the two books of the letters to friends between powerful men and men of knowledge. This conclusion is still valid if we think of an editor aiming for rehabilitation of the family.

  15.According to Demougin 2001, 221, there is a clear distinction between relations and friends who shared contubernium with Fronto. On the intellectual activities that took place in this circle, cf. Johnson 2012, 141–148.

  16.The studies that analyse both cultural worlds are increasingly numerous, cf. Harrison 2000, Kemezis 2010, and Keulen 2009.

  17.On Anacharsis in the authors of the second century, cf. Richter 2011, 167f.

  18.Fronto, like most of the writers of his century, evolves in a bilingual world, where the knowledge of both languages, especially for a Latin speaker, is indispensable. On this topic, see Bowie 1970, 4. Russell, 1990, 14, thinks that Fronto, in this letter, associates Greek and primary education and rejects Greek for the adult orator.

  19.Cf. Swain 2004.

  20.Same conclusions in Claassen 2009
. For a more historical study, cf. Méthy 1983.

  CHAPTER 17

  1.Behr 1994, 1163–1177. Aristides used the term “sophist” to denigrate the “Asianists” (Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries [of Oratory], Or. 34) or personal rivals (e.g., Or. 33.29). But he also used it in the neutral sense of “teacher,” and in particular “public teacher” (Puech 2002, 10–15).

  2.See Pernot 2003, 128–133.

  3.Most of the biographical information about Aristides that is to be found in the present text comes from his own work (and in particular the Sacred Tales; Or. 47–52), Philostratus, 2.9.581–585, Sopatros’s Prolegomena (ed. F. W. Lenz, 1959), the Suda and various epigraphic sources. Behr (1968, 1994) gives a version which, though detailed, is sometimes conjectural. See also Bowie 1996.

  4.Behr 1981–1986 is the source for all the quotations from Aristides’s works.

  5.See also Franco 2005.

  6.Nicosia 1979; Petsalis-Diomidis 2010.

  7.Puech 2002, 140–145.

  8.Vix 2010, 373–389.

  9.See, for example, Vix 2010, 314–397, and his bibliography; and Kim, chapter 4 in this volume.

  10.Or. 32, taking the form of a letter to the magistrates of Cotiaeum.

  11.The hymns (Or. 37–46), among others, were written down before being presented orally, and were later reworked. In other words, they were aimed firstly at listeners, then at readers.

  12.Philostr. VS 581.

  13.See, for example, Or. 46, The Isthmian Oration: Regarding Poseidon.

  14.Quet 1993, 213; 2001.

  15.The Sacred Tales contain many references to the esteem in which he is held, e.g., Or. 48, 82; Or. 50, 48, 91, 95, 102; Or. 51, 29.

  16.Puech 2002, 140–145; Quet 1992.

  17.Quet 2006.

  18.He gives a detailed account of his requests to the proconsul of Asia not to serve as an eirenarch in Adriani. And the emperors apparently sent a letter to the authorities in Smyrna confirming his fiscal exemption. Each time, he won his point, and was heaped with honors and excuses (Or. 50, 72–108). See Bowersock 1969, 36–41; Puech 2002, 27; Sartre 1991, 144–147.

  19.Philostr. VS 583.

  20.Philostr. VS 583.

  21.Philostr. VS 583.

  22.Philostr. VS 585.

  23.Pernot 1997, 171–183.

  24.See Bowie 1996 for a classification: the “epideictic” orations (in praise of cities: Or. 1 [Panathenaikos], Or. 18 and 21 [Smyrna], Or. 22 [Eleusis], Or. 26 [Rome], Or. 27 [Cyzicus], Or. 46 [Corinth], and those that commemorate a funeral [Or. 31 and 32] or a birthday [Or. 30]); the “deliberative,” or “polemical,” orations, which are either political (Or. 23 and 24) or related to Aristides’s career in rhetoric (the Platonic discourses, Or. 2–4); Or. 28, 29, 33, and 34; the Sacred Tales (Or. 47–52); the “declamations” (Or. 5–16); and the “hymns in prose” (Or. 37–46). There is also an essay on the source of the Nile, Or. 36.

  25.See also the funeral orations that he composed for his student Eteoneus (Or. 31) and his master Alexander (Or. 32); also Vix 2010, 113–141.

  26.See also Or. 28.6, 47.16, and 50.15.

  27.Or. 5 and 6, the “Sicilian orations,” for and against sending reinforcements to Sicily; Or. 7 and 8, the “orations for peace.”

  28.Or. 9 and 10, “orations on the alliance with the Thebans”; Or. 11–15, the “Leuctran orations.”

  29.See, for example, Swain 1996, 260–274.

  30.See Pernot 2002, 373–374.

  31.It is essentially in Or. 50 and 51 that Asclepius is spoken of as providing Aristides with methods for developing his rhetorical talents.

  32.Philostr VS 581. On Asclepius’s actions in different domains, see, in particular, Or. 42.

  33.Petsalis-Diomidis 2010.

  34.See, in particular, Quet 1993.

  35.Pernot 2002, and in particular 371.

  36.Whitmarsh 2005, 83–85.

  37.Quet 1993, 221. On the structure of the Sacred Tales, see Behr 1968, 116–119; Gigli 1977; Pearcy 1988.

  38.See, for example, Or. 51.56, where Aristides goes from a psychological assessment of middle life to an expression of his spiritual fulfilment.

  39.Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 122–124. Recent research has relocated the Sacred Tales within the study of religion and culture in the second century (Nicosia 1979, 1988). Anthropological approaches have also been developed recently; see chapters by Holmes, Downie, and Petsalis-Diomidis in Harris and Holmes 2008.

  40.Pernot 2002, 382–383.

  41.Or. 2 (To Plato: In Defense of Oratory) and Or. 3 (To Plato: In Defense of the Four). There is also a brief work, Or. 4 (To Capito), in which Aristides replies to the criticisms of a contemporary philosopher. See Milazzo 2002.

  42.Or. 50.57, 51.57–66, gives a significant dream in which Plato is quoted favourably (Or. 51.58), and is placed above Demosthenes and Homer (Or. 51.63).

  43.Pernot 1993b, 323.

  44.Flintermann 2002a.

  45.Flintermann 2002b, 199–200; Karadimas, 1996, 240.

  46.Or. 2.52.

  47.See Or. 3.672, for a contrasted portrait.

  48.Pl. Ap. 31 c–d.

  49.See also Or. 33.19; Flintermann 2002b.

  50.See Wissmann 1999.

  51.Or. 2.393–399; also Saïd 2008, 65–67, 66 (quotation).

  52.Miletti 2011.

  53.Pernot 1998; Rutherford 1995, 203.

  54.Quet 2001, 215.

  55.Quet 2001.

  56.In this passage, Aristides rejoins the spirit of the Gorgias (503a), which he also draws on for his definition of eloquence.

  57.There was already a tradition of prose hymns, and Aristides did not claim to be innovating in this area (see Or. 40.1, 44.1), though it is true that references in Greek sources are rare. He himself also composed hymns in verse (Bowie 1989; Goeken 2012, 66–69). His use of prose was thus a deliberate choice.

  58.This was one of his first works, dating from 142 or 143. See Goeken 2012, 76–77.

  59.Goeken 2012, 81.

  60.Pernot 2007.

  61.Pernot 1997, 163–170.

  62.See the subtitles given by J. H. Oliver to the annotated translation of these two orations: “The Ruling Power” (1953) and “The Civilizing Power” (1968).

  63.Pernot 1993a, 323–328.

  64.Oudot 2006a, 2006b.

  65.Swain 1996, 274–276.

  66.Pernot 2008.

  67.See, however, Or. 51.56, where Aristides regrets that, given his poor health, he has not been able to visit as many cities as he would have liked.

  68.On urban development, see also Or. 26.97.

  69.Regarding the orations on Smyrna (Or. 17–21), see Franco 2005.

  70.See Jones 2008; Robert 2009.

  71.Fragment 50.12, ed. Patillon-Brisson.

  72.Cribiore 2008.

  73.Or. 18, 23, 24, 26, 27, and 34.

  74.Robert 2009, 154–160.

  CHAPTER 18

  1.The fullest study of the problems of authorship and attribution remains De Lannoy 1997.

  2.As Solmsen 1940 already saw. See also Grossardt 2006, 14–16.

  3.For some Motivparallelen, see Grossardt 2006, 21–23.

  4.On this text: Whitmarsh 1999.

  5.There is almost no modern discussion. On the second Dialexis, see Swain 2009 and on the nature and transmission of these texts Miles 2017.

  6.Bowie 2009 examines the available evidence for Philostratus’s life and career.

  7.On the “circle” of Julia Domna, see the appropriately wary analysis of Whitmarsh 2007, 32–38 with further bibliography.

  8.Beschorner 1999.

  9.Grossardt 2006, 14–17; Solmsen 1940.

  10.For instance, “A Protean corpus”: Elsner 2009a.

  11.Billault 2000, 5.

  12.Grossardt 2006; Schirren 2005.

  13.For instance, Maclean and Aitken 2001; Mantero 1966.

  14.Space does not permit discussion of the Letters, Gymnasticus, Dialexis, and Nero. Letters: Goldhill 2009a, and Hodkinson, chapter 32 in this volu
me. Gymnasticus: König 2005, 301–344. Nero: Whitmarsh 1999. Dialexis: Swain 2009.

  15.For example, Apollonius writes to the sophist Scopelian (1.23–24), who also appears in the Lives of the Sophists (514–521), and Dio Chrysostom features in both texts. Some other points of contact: Kemezis 2011, 22n54.

  16.Rhetoric: Billault 1992 and 1993. Theios Sophistes is the apt title of Demoen and Praet 2009.

  17.Whitmarsh 2005, 1–10.

  18.See Johnson and Richter, chapter 1 in this volume.

  19.On Atticism, see Kim, chapter 4 in this volume, and Kim 2010a.

  20.On the composite portrait of “the sophist” in the Lives, see Côté 2006, 23, and Anderson 1989 and 1993.

  21.Côté 2006, 19, with further bibliography.

  22.Swain 1991.

  23.Anderson 1986, 83.

  24.Eshleman 2008; Kemezis 2011 on geography.

  25.On the identity of this Gordian, see Barnes 1968, and Jones 2002.

  26.Eshleman 2008 on these omissions. Herodes as conduit for the Ionian sophists: Kemezis 2011, 8–9. For the wider picture of Greek oratory in this period which emerges from the epigraphic evidence, see Puech 2002.

  27.Eshleman 2008, 396.

  28.Goldhill 2009b.

  29.See Bowie 1978; Dzielska 1986; Meyer 1917; Weisser 1980 on the Arabic tradition; Penella 1979 on the Letters.

  30.Francis 1995, 126–130.

  31.On Apollonius’s Pythagoreanism: Flinterman 2009. On other aspects of this school, Burkert 1972; O’Meara 1991; Zhmud 2012.

  32.Swain 1995 proves conclusively that the supposed Sanskrit evidence for Apollonius’s visit is a nineteenth-century forgery. It was already regarded as suspect by Bhattacharya 1943, vi c–d.

  33.Elsner 1997. Further on geography, see Abraham 2014.

  34.See Karttunen 1989; Parker 2008; Sedlar 1980.

  35.See also Richter 2011, 199–206; Belousov 2014.

  36.Swain 1995, 254.

  37.Koskenniemi 1991, 1998; Petzke 1970.

  38.Edwards 2007.

  39.On the probability that this text was not by Eusebius of Caesarea, see Hägg 1992.