DOCSLIB.ORG

The High Imperial Period. 97Ad–267Ad

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The High Imperial Period. 97Ad–267Ad chapter 4 The High Imperial Period. 97ad–267ad 4.1 Introduction to the Period The dates I chose to begin the three previous chapters—323bc (the death of Alexander), 197bc (Battle of Kynoskephalai), 31bc (Battle of Actium)—can each be thought of as ushering in a new historical era. It might therefore seem slightly odd that I have chosen 97ad as the start date for the period covered by this chapter. In that year the Emperor Nerva died and power passed to his chosen successor Trajan. The transition was a smooth one by any standards and life all over the Empire carried on much as it had before. This might not seem a particularly momentous event in the history of Greece so the choice of date probably requires some justification. As stated in the Introduction, the dates chosen to bracket all of my chapters are to a large extent arbitrary—they conveniently produce four chapters that cover periods of roughly equal length—each around a century and a half. It is, furthermore, one of the central arguments of this book that the transformation of the agora did not match neatly to particular political events but rather proceeded at an uneven pace over a period of several centuries. Nonetheless it should be clear enough from the discussion in the previous three chapters that the development of the agora certainly was affected by the currents of historical change. The rise of the Hellenistic monarchs, the coming of Rome and the transformation of Rome from Republic to Empire all created a new cultural and political climate and affected life in the Greek polis and life on its main public spaces. The periods are therefore real enough. The cultural and political climate in the second century ad Greece was very different from how it had been in the first; the difference is arguably far greater than between what I have called the early and late Hellenistic periods, or between the late Hellenistic period and the early Empire. Ever since Gibbon, the second century ad has been seen as the high point of the Roman Empire, a period of stability, peace and economic prosperity, a “Golden Age”.1 For the Greeks the period meant greater integration into the 1 For a succinct, and fairly recent, discussion of the second century as a “Golden Age” see Koester 1995, 304ff. For Gibbon this was not only the high point of the Roman Empire but of human civilisation; he famously wrote: “If a man were called to fix the period in © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi: 10.1163/9789004334755_006 334 chapter 4 Roman circles, at least for the elite, and a revival of culture, which historians refer to as the Second Sophistic. Although these developments reached their peak under Hadrian and the Antonines it was under Trajan that they began. His ascension to the purple was, therefore, very much a turning point in Greek history. At its heart, as a cultural movement, the Second Sophistic centred on the rise of public declamation as an art form, a form of mass entertainment, and a mark of elite education or paideia.2 Our best source for the movement is Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, from whom the term “Second Sophistic” has been taken. Although Philostratus’ “Second Sophistic” actually began in the late Classical period, the revival of the Greek art of declamation on which his mass biography focuses really started with a certain Niketes of Smyrna in the reign of Nero and seems to have reached its high point in the mid second century ad when most of his subjects lived.3 No written work by Niketes survives but we do have an abundance of writing by two other men who might stake a claim to being precursors of the second century sophists—Dio of Prusa and Plutarch. Philostratus might state that he did not think of Dio as a sophist as such but he discusses him briefly as the teacher of men who were;4 though Plutarch is rarely thought of as a sophist he was a trained and accomplished rhetorician known the history of the world during which the condition of the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would, without hesitation, name that which elapsed from the death of Domitian to the accession of Commodus”—Gibbon 1996 [1776], 73. de Ste. Croix (1981, 470) says of this passage that he “can think of no statement by an ancient historian about the Roman world that has been quoted more often”; he characteristically puts the state- ment into perspective by arguing that the Golden Age was largely confined to the upper classes and that by no means everybody had it so good. A wide range of evidence contin- ues to support the idea of the 2nd century as the high point of the Empire’s prosperity as argued by Jongman 2007—“Gibbon was right” as the title of the paper has it. The best, and most up to date, overview of the history of the Greek East in this period must be Levick 2000. 2 Scholarly literature on the Second Sophistic has been growing apace in recent years. For good overviews see Whitmarsh 2005, Borg 2004 and Anderson 1993. 3 The term “Second Sophistic” (ἡ δευτέρα σοφιστική) was coined by Philostratus Lives of the Sophists Preface. 481. He uses the term to refer to a new type of declamation first seen in fourth century Athens. In modern scholarship, however, the term is generally used to refer to the period that is the main subject of Philostratus’ book—the late first to early third century ad— Bowie, E.L. “Second Sophistic”. Brill’s New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World: Antiquity. Ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider. Leiden, Brill, 2005. For Philostratus on Niketes see Lives of the Sophists 1.19. 4 Philostratus on Dio—Lives of the Sophists 1.487..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Physiognomy in Ancient Science and Medicine
    Physiognomy Mariska Leunissen The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Introduction Physiognomy(fromthelaterGreek physiognōmia ,whichisacontractionoftheclassicalform physiognōmonia )referstotheancientscienceofdeterminingsomeone’sinnatecharacteronthe basisoftheiroutward,andhenceobservable,bodilyfeatures.Forinstance,Socrates’famous snubnosewasuniversallyinterpretedbyancientphysiognomistsasaphysiognomicalsignof hisinnatelustfulness,whichheonlyovercamethroughphilosophicaltraining.Thediscipline initstechnicalformwithitsownspecializedpractitionersfirstsurfacesinGreeceinthefifth century BCE ,possiblythroughconnectionswiththeNearEast,wherebodilysignswere takenasindicatorsofsomeone’sfutureratherthanhischaracter.Theshifttocharacter perhapsarisesfromthewidespreadculturalpracticeintheancientGreekandRomanworld oftreatingsomeone’soutwardappearanceasindicativeforhispersonality,whichisalready visibleinHomer(eighthcentury BCE ).Inthe Iliad ,forinstance,adescriptionofThersites’ quarrelsomeandrepulsivecharacterisfollowedbyadescriptionofhisequallyuglybody(see Iliad 2.211–219),suggestingthatthiscorrespondencebetweenbodyandcharacterisno accident.ThersitesisthustheperfectfoilfortheGreekidealofthe kaloskagathos –theman whoisbothbeautifulandgood.Thesameholdsforthepracticeofattributingcharacter traitsassociatedwithaparticularanimalspeciestoapersonbasedonsimilaritiesintheir physique:itisfirstformalizedinphysiognomy,butwasalreadywidelyusedinanon- 1 technicalwayinancientliterature.Themostfamousexampleofthelatterisperhaps SemonidesofAmorgos’satireofwomen(fragment7
    [Show full text]
  • Livre Antard18.Indb
    AnTard, 18, 2010, p. 211-224 GREEK RHETORIC AND THE LATER ROMAN EMPIRE. THE BUBBLE OF THE ‘THIRD SOPHISTIC’* LIEVE VAN HOOF Rhétorique grecque et Empire romain tardif. Le mirage de la “Troisième Sophistique” Longtemps négligée, la rhétorique tardo-antique fait maintenant l’objet d’un nombre croissant d’études. Pour mieux marquer cette revalorisation, on a introduit la dénomination de “Troisième Sophistique”. Le présent article entend démontrer que ce syntagme reste problématique : faute de s’accorder sur son signifié précis, les caractéristiques qui lui sont attribuées font l’objet d’une dis- cussion constante. En particulier, le rapport entre la “Troisième Sophistique” et son prédécesseur, la Seconde Sophistique, manque de clarté. Un obstacle majeur qui a empêché de définir ce rapport est la différence d’approche que l’on constate entre les spécialistes de la littérature du Bas Empire et ceux de la littérature du Haut Empire : si la Seconde Sophistique a été longtemps interprétée – comme l’est encore trop souvent la littérature tardo-antique – comme une expression culturelle en déclin ou, du moins, privée de vitalité, les nouvelles approches méthodologiques développées au cours des deux dernières décennies en ont au contraire démontré le dynamisme et l’incidence sociale. Plutôt que de repartir du syntagme “Seconde Sophistique”, on propose une autre vision des choses : appliquées à l’Antiquité tardive, ces mêmes approches méthodologiques nous montrent pour cette époque des sophis- tes qui, loin d’avoir perdu leur prestige social au profit des professeurs de droit, des sténographes, ou des évêques, continuaient à jouer un rôle important dans la vie politique.
    [Show full text]
  • The Sophistic Roman: Education and Status in Quintilian, Tacitus and Pliny Brandon F. Jones a Dissertation Submitted in Partial
    The Sophistic Roman: Education and Status in Quintilian, Tacitus and Pliny Brandon F. Jones A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2015 Reading Committee: Alain Gowing, Chair Catherine Connors Alexander Hollmann Deborah Kamen Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Classics ©Copyright 2015 Brandon F. Jones University of Washington Abstract The Sophistic Roman: Education and Status in Quintilian, Tacitus and Pliny Brandon F. Jones Chair of Supervisory Commitee: Professor Alain Gowing Department of Classics This study is about the construction of identity and self-promotion of status by means of elite education during the first and second centuries CE, a cultural and historical period termed by many as the Second Sophistic. Though the Second Sophistic has traditionally been treated as a Greek cultural movement, individual Romans also viewed engagement with a past, Greek or otherwise, as a way of displaying education and authority, and, thereby, of promoting status. Readings of the work of Quintilian, Tacitus and Pliny, first- and second-century Latin prose authors, reveal a remarkable engagement with the methodologies and motivations employed by their Greek contemporaries—Dio of Prusa, Plutarch, Lucian and Philostratus, most particularly. The first two chapters of this study illustrate and explain the centrality of Greek in the Roman educational system. The final three chapters focus on Roman displays of that acquired Greek paideia in language, literature and oratory, respectively. As these chapters demonstrate, the social practices of paideia and their deployment were a multi-cultural phenomenon. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................... 2 Introduction ....................................................................................... 4 Chapter One.
    [Show full text]
  • The Second Sophistic the Second Sophistic
    THE SECOND SOPHISTIC THE SECOND SOPHISTIC A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire Graham Anderson London and New York First published 1993 by Routledge 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 © 1993 Graham Anderson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Anderson, Graham. The second sophistic: a cultural phenomenon in the Roman empire/Graham Anderson p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Rome–History–Empire, 30 B.B.–284 A.D. 2. Rome–Civilization-Greek influences. 3. Sophists (Greek philosophy) 4. Rhetoric, Ancient. I. Title DG78.A63 1993 937′07–dc20 92–47085 ISBN 0-203-97405-0 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-415-09988-9 (Print Edition) For Ewen Bowie Contents Preface vi List of abbreviations ix INTRODUCTION: ROMAN EMPIRE AND GREEK 1 RENAISSANCE 1 SOPHISTS IN SOCIETY 13 2 PREPARATION,
    [Show full text]
  • Philostratus's Apollonius
    PHILOSTRATUS’S APOLLONIUS: A CASE STUDY IN APOLOGETICS IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE Andrew Mark Hagstrom A thesis submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirement of the degree of Master of Arts in Religious Studies in the School of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Zlatko Pleše Bart Ehrman James Rives © 2016 Andrew Mark Hagstrom ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Andrew Mark Hagstrom: Philostratus’s Apollonius: A Case Study in Apologetics in the Roman Empire Under the direction of Zlatko Pleše My argument is that Philostratus drew on the Christian gospels and acts to construct a narrative in which Apollonius both resembled and transcended Jesus and the Apostles. In the first chapter, I review earlier scholarship on this question from the time of Eusebius of Caesarea to the present. In the second chapter, I explore the context in which Philostratus wrote the VA, focusing on the Severan dynasty, the Second Sophistic, and the struggle for cultural supremacy between Pagans and Christians. In the third chapter, I turn to the text of the VA and the Christian gospels and acts. I point out specific literary parallels, maintaining that some cannot be explained by shared genre. I also suggest that the association of the Egyptian god Proteus with both Philostratus’s Apollonius and Jesus/Christians is further evidence for regarding VA as a polemical response to the Christians. In my concluding chapter, I tie the several strands of my argument together to show how they collectively support my thesis.
    [Show full text]
  • Plutarch’ S Table Talk
    86 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW PLUTARCH’ S TABLE TALK K LOTZ (F.), OIKONOMOPOULOU ( K . ) (edd.) The Philosopher’s Banquet. Plutarch’s Table Talk in the Intellectual Culture of the Roman Empire. Pp. xx + 279. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Cased, £55, US$99. ISBN: 978-0-19-958895-4. doi:10.1017/S0009840X12002478 This volume was inspired by a colloquium on Plutarch’s Table Talk (or Quaestiones con- vivales, QC), but the editors seek to do more than present a simple miscellany of confer- ence papers. The eight essays, along with the brief introductory and concluding essays by the editors, are intended ‘to mark a new departure’ for interpreting the QC and to ‘pursue a contextualized study of the work’ in a systematic way (p. 3). In their introduction, K. and O. underscore the lack of attention paid to the QC as a work of literature, in comparison with the treatment of similar works such as Pliny’s Natural History, Aulus Gellius’ Attic Nights and Athenaeus’ Deipnosophistae. This omission, they argue, is a detriment to our understanding both of the work itself and of the literary, philosophical and cultural tra- ditions of the Second Sophistic. K. and O. establish the context for these studies with an informative survey of the three major traditions on which the QC draws and further develops. First, the literary symposium going back to Plato and Xenophon is an influence acknowledged by Plutarch in the preface to Book 1, although he has adapted the tradition to create a ‘sympotic miscellany, closest to Xenophon’s Memorabilia’ (p. 15) that features a variety of topics, speakers, times and locations.
    [Show full text]
  • The Second Sophistic the SECOND SOPHISTIC
    GRW 6930-Special Topics in Greek Literature: The Second Sophistic THE SECOND SOPHISTIC COURSE NUMBER: GRW 6930 CREDIT HOURS: 3 SEMESTER/YEAR: SPRING 2018 CLASS LOCATION: DAU 0342 CLASS MEETING TIME(S): R 8-10 PERIODS INSTRUCTOR: Eleni Bozia OFFICE LOCATION/HOURS: DAUER HALL 137/ MONDAY 5TH-6TH CONTACT EMAIL: [email protected] CONTACT PHONE: (352) 273-3694 COURSE WEBSITE: PLAZA.UFL.EDU/BOZIA COURSE DESCRIPTION This course will focus on the study of a unique literary genre, the Second Sophistic, dating from the 1st to the 3rd centuries CE. The time period also get its name from this literary current, signifying the potency of the works and the language at the time. The name Second Sophistic comes to us from Philostratus, the 3rd-century CE author, along with a list of authors who are part of this movement. It includes mainly orators of the Imperial Era who originate from all parts of the Empire yet all write in Greek. It also prompts a comparison between the sophists of the 5th century BCE and their influence on those imperial descendants. During the course of the semester, we will try to define the Second Sophistic, discuss its politicization of the language as well as the socio-political implications that these literary works carry. PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS This is a graduate course. So advanced knowledge of Greek is required. PURPOSE OF COURSE The purpose of the course is to help students advance their understanding of a unique literary trend and a period of history that has not been explored extensively yet.
    [Show full text]
  • Oxford Scholarship Online
    University Press Scholarship Online Oxford Scholarship Online Philosophy and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin Gillian Clark and Tessa Rajak Print publication date: 2002 Print ISBN-13: 9780198299905 Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2010 DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299905.001.0001 Philosophy in the Second Sophistic Glen W. Bowersock DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299905.003.0009 Abstract and Keywords This chapter explores the extraordinary power of philosophy in the 2nd century, when Roman emperors had stopped sneering at philosophy, and intellectuals were high fashion. Philostratus labelled this period the Second Sophistic, because, as in Athens at the time of Socrates, intellectuals who could give a good performance were admired and highly paid. The chapter traces the changing reception in modern scholarship of this ‘performance philosophy’ and its startling reversals. Philosophers who were (on principle) shabby and hairy had makeovers and presented themselves as the media stars they were, so that nobody knew what an intellectual looked like any more. Philosophers seek knowledge, sophists boldly claim to have it: but now a philosopher with sufficient rhetorical brilliance might achieve the status of sophist. Philosophy brought worldly success. Keywords: Second Sophistic, philosophy, philosophers, sophists Miriam Griffin and I have known each other for more than forty years, and it is a particular joy to offer her this paper in celebration of a distinguished career. We met at Harvard University in a class taught by Sir Ronald Syme when he was a visiting professor there in late 1956, and we both left America for Oxford to begin further study in the damp autumn of the following year.
    [Show full text]
  • 23. Jewish Literature and the Second Sophistic
    23. JewishLiteratureand the Second Sophistic The Jews sawthemselvesasapeople apart.The Bible affirmed it,and the na- tion’sexperience seemed to confirm it.AsGod proclaimed in the Book of Levi- ticus, “Youshall be holytome, for Ithe Lordamholy, and Ihaveset youapart from otherpeoples to be mine”.¹ The idea is echoed in Numbers: “There is apeo- ple that dwells apart,not reckoned among the nations.”² Other biblical passages reinforce the sense of achosen people, selectedbythe Lord(for both favorand punishment) and placed in acategory unto themselves.³ This notion of Jewish exceptionalism recurs with frequency in the Bible, most pointedlyperhaps in the construct of the return from the Babylonian Exile when the maintenance of endogamyloomed as paramount to assert the identity of the nation.⁴ The imagewas more than amatter of self-perception. Greeks and Romans also characterized Jews as holding themselvesaloof from other societies and keepingtotheirown kind.The earliest Greek writer who discussed Jews at anylength, Hecataeus of Abdera, described them (in an otherwise favorable ac- count) as somewhat xenophobic and misanthropic.⁵ That form of labelingper- sisted through the Hellenistic period and well into the eraofthe RomanEmpire. One need onlycite Tacitus and Juvenal for piercingcomments on the subject: Jews are fiercelyhostile to gentiles and spurn the companyofthe uncircumcised.⁶ Whatever the perceptions or the constructs, however,they did not match conditions on the ground. Jews dwelled in cities and nations all over the eastern Mediterranean, spilling over also to the west,particularlyinItaly and North Af- rica. The diasporapopulation far outnumbered the Palestinian, and the large majority of the dispersed grew up in lands of Greek languageand culture— and Roman political dominance.⁷ Isolation was not an option.
    [Show full text]
  • ROMAN PHRYGIA: Cities and Their Coinage
    ROMAN PHRYGIA: Cities and their Coinage Andrea June Armstrong, PhD, University College London. Abstract of Thesis Roman Phrygia: Cities and their Coinage The principal focus of this thesis is the Upper Maeander Valley in Phrygia, which is now part of modern Turkey, and in particular three cities situated in that region, namely Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae. The main source used is the coinage produced by these cities with the aim of determining how they viewed their place within the Roman Empire and how they reacted to the realities of Roman rule. Inscriptional, architectural and narrative sources are also used as well as comparative material from other Phrygian and Asian cities. In order to achieve its aim, the thesis is divided into two parts. Part One details the history of Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae and explains the coinage system in use within the province of Asia on a regional and a civic level. The final chapter in the first part of the thesis introduces the theme of the interaction between city, region and empire which is developed more fully in Part Two. Part Two discusses the types used on the coins of the cities of the Upper Maeander Valley in the context of the cultural and religious circumstances of Rome and also in reaction to the organisational and political changes affecting the province of Asia as well as the Empire as a whole. The main conclusions of the thesis are that the cities of Laodicea, Hierapolis and Colossae were very aware of Rome and of their own status, as well as that of their province, within the Roman Empire especially in the context of ongoing circumstances and developments within the Empire.
    [Show full text]
  • The Good King and the Second Sophistic: an Ideological Bargain
    THE GOOD KING AND THE SECOND SOPHISTIC: AN IDEOLOGICAL BARGAIN Lazar Maric I efore I begin, it would be useful to elaborate on the title of this paper.. BWho was the Good King? The view most often encountered in the ancient world is that the chief influencer of a king's actions was his personality, and that a king's rule should be based on and legitimised by his personal qualities; as Veyne puts it, "people did not talk about the craft of kingship, instead they exalted the virtues ofthe reigning prince". 1 In response to the monarchies established by the successors of Alexander the Great, a number of works were composed by the Greeks which held that a king needed to behave in certain ways, owing this behaviour to his innate goodness and personal dignity2 In effect, the Greeks constructed and presented Hellenistic kings with an image of an ideal king which, it was hoped, real kings would strive to live up to" This is the 'Good King ideology', the ideology that prescribed standards of behaviour that every good and legitimate ruler should observe3 This ideology remained ever present in the Roman imperial period; the Roman emperor also had to appear to his su~jects as a 'Good King' in order that he might ensure enthusiasm and approval for his rule4 The Second Sophistic is a somewhat more difficult phenomenon to define .. The term was coined by the biographer and sophist Philostratus in his work, Lives oj-' the Sophists, io refer to the rhetorical and literary movement that flourished in the Greek east fl'om about AD 50 to 250 .
    [Show full text]
  • PHILOSTRATUS' PORTRAIT of HERODES ATTICUS , the Lives Of
    THE KING OF ATHENS: PHILOSTRATUS’ PORTRAIT OF HERODES ATTICUS ESTELLE STRAZDINS HILOSTRATUS’ THIRD-CENTURY-CE TEXT, the Lives of the Sophists, which invents and defines the so-called “Second Sophistic,” privileges Athens Pover any other city in the empire and Herodes Atticus over any other soph- ist. Athens is the center of sophistic activity; Herodes is the city’s most promi- nent citizen, and both the city and the man combine to create and reinforce each other’s significance within this work to the extent that the whole sophistic scene seems to be controlled by Herodes, and Athens itself becomes his domain.1 Re- cently, much scholarly attention has been paid to Herodes, but less to Philo- stratus’ rhetorical presentation of him, since many scholars have long accepted Philostratus as a eulogist or at least an apologist for the great man.2 On a superfi- cial level this picture, particularly Philostratus’ defensive stance toward Herodes, holds true. Yet, I argue, a closer look reveals that the anecdotal biography is in fact a complex mix of praise and blame. Herodes appears as a “larger than life” char- acter, who is ever teetering on the verge of antisocial behavior at the same time as he dominates sophistic society in Athens. The most prominent aspect of Phi- lostratus’ critique involves the refraction of Herodes through a sophistic lens; that is, Philostratus uses the opposing concepts of the tyrant and the king, the ambig- uous figure of the hero, and the revered figure of the philosopher (who appears as a foil to highlight Herodes’ excesses) to meditate on his place as an elite Greek in both Athens and the Roman empire.3 Herodes’ nature is in sharpest relief when juxtaposed to Roman emperors and, in this relationship, Herodes comes to resem- ble Athens’ legendary king, Theseus.
    [Show full text]