2018 Ehrenfeld Claudio 12404

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

2018 Ehrenfeld Claudio 12404 This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Lucian's Hermotimus. Essays about Philosophy and Satire in Greek Literature of the Roman Empire Garcia Ehrenfeld, Claudio Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 02. Oct. 2021 LUCIAN'S HERMOTIMUS, ESSAYS ABOUT PHILOSOPHY AND SATIRE IN GREEK LITERATURE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD in Classics Research By Claudio García Ehrenfeld Supervisor Michael B. Trapp Abstract This dissertation considers the interaction between philosophy and satire in Greek literature of the Roman Empire through a detailed study of Lucian's Hermotimus. The argument is divided into three parts. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 show that recent studies of the dialogue value it according to two distinct ethic and aesthetic scholarly traditions (developmentalist and unitarian) which find themselves in opposition when defining the value of scepticism in Lucianic literature. Chapters 4 and 5 address the form of the Hermotimus, and argue that despite its aporetic tendencies its main character, Lycinus, gives a moral message. Chapters 6 and 7 examine the ways in which the Hermotimus is a parody of protreptic literature and invites its readers not to live in any particular way, but to think about the rhetoric of other protrepic and aporetic philosophical texts of the second century AD. In the dissertation’s conclusion some guidelines to reading the Hermotimus as a destabilizing aischrologic text are presented. 2 Index Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................5 Introduction.......................................................................................................................7 Chapter 1. From the First Readings of Lucian to Voltaire......................................17 1. Setting the Aesthetic Framework. The Hermotimus and Christianity......17 1.2. Adapting the Framework to the Reformation.........................................25 1.3 Lucian’s Religious Scepticism.....................................................................32 Chapter 2. Lucian in the Modern Academy..............................................................38 2.1. Adapting the Aesthetic Framework to Romantic Aesthetics..............40 2.2. The Developmentalist Reading of Lucian................................................41 2.3. The Unitarian Reading of Lucian...............................................................48 2.4. Lucian, a Writer of Entertaining Fiction...................................................54 Chapter 3. Rescuing the Philosophical Content of Lucian’s Comedy.................63 3.1. Subverting Romantic Aesthetics: F. Nietzsche’s Values of the Comic............................................................................................64 3.2. Bakhtinean Values of the Comic................................................................69 3.3. Adapting the Framework to New Values of the Comic.........................75 3.4. Lucian, the Critical Philosopher.................................................................80 3.5. Conclusions to Chapters 1, 2 and 3............................................................84 Chapter 4. The Aporetic Form of the Hermotimus...................................................87 4.1. Hermotimus’ Hopes in Stoic Philosophy.................................................89 4.2. Lycinus’ λόγος..............................................................................................93 4.3. Lycinus’ Proposed Κοινὸς βίος................................................................100 4.4. The Hermotimus’ Ἀπορία...........................................................................104 4.5. Hermotimus’ Conversion..........................................................................107 Chapter 5. The Moral Message of the Hermotimus...............................................112 5.1. Eikonomachia................................................................................................113 5.2. The Philosophical Quest: A Road, a Maze and a stormy Sea..................................................................................116 5.3. Lycinus’ Attack against Hope..................................................................120 5.4. The Descent from the Utopian to the Real City.....................................125 5.5. The Moral Message of the Hermotimus....................................................129 3 Chapter 6. The Hermotimus as a Parody of Platonic Themes..............................134 6.1. Lycinus as a Parody of Socrates...............................................................134 6.2. Hermotimus as Opsimath.........................................................................137 6.3. The Philosophers of the Hermotimus as Platonic Sophists....................141 6.4. The Parody of the Socratic Investigation about Virtue.........................146 6.5. Parody of the Metaphor of the Road and of the Destination of Philosophy......................................................150 Chapter 7 Perplexity as Lucian’s aesthetic Aim.....................................................161 7.1. The Parody of Protreptic Discourse.........................................................162 7.2 The Comparison of the Tabula of Cebes and the Hermotimus...........................................................................................165 7.3. Lucian’s Pun on Academics, Pyrrhonists and Stoics Ending in Aporia............................................................................171 7.4. Perplexity as an aesthetic Aim in Lucian’s Fiction................................178 Chapter 8. Conclusions...................................................................................................................190 8.1. Friendship and Reputation.......................................................................193 8.2. Quarrel between Favorinus of Arles and Epictetus..............................200 8.3. A Stoic Reader of the Hermotimus............................................................202 8.4. A Sceptic Reader of the Hermotimus........................................................205 8.5. Final Observations........... .........................................................................208 Bibliography.................................................................................................................215 4 Acknowledgements This thesis is about education. Few Mexican students of the humanities have had the privilege of studying abroad on a full scholarship as part of a public and scientific education system, and this doctoral thesis would not have been possible without the generosity of The National Council of Science and Technology in Mexico (CONACYT). The second privilege offered to me has been the opportunity to study with a great expert in second century literature and philosophy. This thesis owes everything to the enlightening guidance of Prof. Michael Trapp, who has at all times also been a supportive and caring teacher. The commentaries of Dr. Saul Tor have kept me on the right track and spurred me on towards completion. At various points Ismene Lada Richards has helped me escape the meaningless caves into which a student like myself often risks falling. It has in addition been an honour to work with Prof. Lada Richards as a seminar leader, as with Prof. Raphael Woolf and Dr. Lucy Jackson. I extend my gratitude to the Staff of the KCL Classics Department, to the staff at the Maughan Library, and all the workers at KCL, ICS Library, Senate House, and the British Library. These hardworking staffs are essential to the institutions from which students benefit hugely. Writing in a foreign language can be a challenge as difficult as climbing the tallest mountain, and editing is at least twice as hard. I thank Siân Hunter Dodsworth for the care, patience and love that she has shown in helping me making this thesis more intelligible to the English reader. It is no secret that this thesis has been written amidst political turmoil taking place in Syria, Mexico and the United Kingdom. In Britain, there is uncertainty as to how rights to education will be ensured. In Syria, a war has killed hundreds of thousands of students, teachers and future
Recommended publications
  • Skepticism and Pluralism Ways of Living a Life Of
    SKEPTICISM AND PLURALISM WAYS OF LIVING A LIFE OF AWARENESS AS RECOMMENDED BY THE ZHUANGZI #±r A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI'I IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AUGUST 2004 By John Trowbridge Dissertation Committee: Roger T. Ames, Chairperson Tamara Albertini Chung-ying Cheng James E. Tiles David R. McCraw © Copyright 2004 by John Trowbridge iii Dedicated to my wife, Jill iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completing this research, I would like to express my appreciation first and foremost to my wife, Jill, and our three children, James, Holly, and Henry for their support during this process. I would also like to express my gratitude to my entire dissertation committee for their insight and understanding ofthe topics at hand. Studying under Roger Ames has been a transformative experience. In particular, his commitment to taking the Chinese tradition on its own terms and avoiding the tendency among Western interpreters to overwrite traditional Chinese thought with the preoccupations ofWestern philosophy has enabled me to broaden my conception ofphilosophy itself. Roger's seminars on Confucianism and Daoism, and especially a seminar on writing a philosophical translation ofthe Zhongyong r:pJm (Achieving Equilibrium in the Everyday), have greatly influenced my own initial attempts to translate and interpret the seminal philosophical texts ofancient China. Tamara Albertini's expertise in ancient Greek philosophy was indispensable to this project, and a seminar I audited with her, comparing early Greek and ancient Chinese philosophy, was part ofthe inspiration for my choice ofresearch topic. I particularly valued the opportunity to study Daoism and the Yijing ~*~ with Chung-ying Cheng g\Gr:p~ and benefited greatly from his theory ofonto-cosmology as a means of understanding classical Chinese philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Didactic Poetry: the Hellenistic Invention of a Pre-Existing Genre
    in Richard Hunter, Antonios Rengakos, and Evina Sistakou (eds.), Hellenistic Studies at a Crossroads: Exploring Texts, Contexts and Metatexts, Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volume 25 (Berlin 2014) David Sider Didactic poetry: The Hellenistic invention of a pre-existing genre For all that it is almost a cliché that Hellenistic poets were acutely aware of genre —who before Callimachus would or could have boasted of his πολυείδεια?—,¹ discussions, let alone definitions, of didactic poetry as a genre are scarce. Why bother, when it seems so obvious? Look at Aratus and Nicander, whose model was Hesiod, and nothing more need be said. Nonetheless, that will be my aim here. There have of course been many useful studies of classical didactic poetry,² some of which offer various classifications (see below); yet I have long felt that insufficient attention has been paid, both by the ancients themselves and by us today, to the development of the poems called didactic, although modern termi- nology and the ancients are not in complete agreement as to what constitutes a Bibliography at end. Some earlier poets did in fact write in more than one genre, but could have boasted of it only in particular terms, i.e., by specifying “I write poems of type X and Y,” as we see at the end of the Symposium 223d ὁμολογεῖναὐτοὺςτοῦαὐτοῦἀνδρὸςεἶναι κωμῳδίαν καὶ τραγῳδίαν ἐπίστασθαι ποιεῖν, καὶ τὸν τέχνῃ τραγῳδοποιὸν ὄντα <καὶ> κωμῳδοποιὸνεἶναι (“They agreed that the same man can know how to compose both comedy and tragedy, and that the skilled tragic poet is also a skilled writer of comedies”)—to which one can add that Plato has himself done this within this very dialogue, adding satyrography, as Bacon (1959) shows.
    [Show full text]
  • Aspasian Infidelities. on Aspasius' Philosophical Background (EN I)
    apeiron 2016; 49(2): 229–259 António Pedro Mesquita* Aspasian Infidelities. On Aspasius’ Philosophical Background (EN I) DOI 10.1515/apeiron-2015-0028 Abstract: The discussion on Aspasius’ philosophical background has benefited in recent years from a wide consensus. According to this consensus, Aspasius should be regarded as a Peripatetic, or even as an “orthodox Peripatetic” (Barnes’ phrase). It is true that Aspasius’ commentary is generally in tune with Aristotle. It is true that he shows an extensive knowledge of Aristotelian research pertinent for the discussions and that he uses Aristotelian concepts, principles, and doctrines with ease as if they were his own, thus denoting an old assimila- tion of those materials and a long accommodation to them. In a word, it is true that Aspasius is an Aristotelian. He is, however, as I will try to show in this paper, an Aristotelian strongly influenced by Stoicism. I will do so by selecting those points from Aspasius’ commentary on book I of the Nicomachean Ethics where the Stoic influence is most flagrantly evident, namely in his interpretation of art (τέχνη), his conception of continence and incontinence and, especially, his interpretation of the relation between happiness, virtue, and external goods in Aristotle. Keywords: Aspasius, Aristotelianism, Stoicism, happiness, virtue, external goods The Consensus The discussion on Aspasius’ philosophical background has benefited in recent years from a wide consensus. A good example of this consensus is the position Barnes sustains on the matter in his excellent “Introduction to Aspasius”, where he states the following1: Next, Aspasius’ philosophical position. Galen calls him a Peripatetic, and it is plain that his pupil taught Galen Peripatetic philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • A History of Cynicism
    A HISTORY OF CYNICISM Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com A HISTORY OF CYNICISM From Diogenes to the 6th Century A.D. by DONALD R. DUDLEY F,llow of St. John's College, Cambrid1e Htmy Fellow at Yale University firl mll METHUEN & CO. LTD. LONDON 36 Essex Street, Strand, W.C.2 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com First published in 1937 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com PREFACE THE research of which this book is the outcome was mainly carried out at St. John's College, Cambridge, Yale University, and Edinburgh University. In the help so generously given to my work I have been no less fortunate than in the scenes in which it was pursued. I am much indebted for criticism and advice to Professor M. Rostovtseff and Professor E. R. Goodonough of Yale, to Professor A. E. Taylor of Edinburgh, to Professor F. M. Cornford of Cambridge, to Professor J. L. Stocks of Liverpool, and to Dr. W. H. Semple of Reading. I should also like to thank the electors of the Henry Fund for enabling me to visit the United States, and the College Council of St. John's for electing me to a Research Fellowship. Finally, to• the unfailing interest, advice and encouragement of Mr. M. P. Charlesworth of St. John's I owe an especial debt which I can hardly hope to repay. These acknowledgements do not exhaust the list of my obligations ; but I hope that other kindnesses have been acknowledged either in the text or privately.
    [Show full text]
  • Guast, W. (2017). Accepting the Omen: External Reference in Greek Declamation
    Guast, W. (2017). Accepting the omen: external reference in Greek declamation. Cambridge Classical Journal, 63, 82-102. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1750270517000069 Peer reviewed version Link to published version (if available): 10.1017/S1750270517000069 Link to publication record in Explore Bristol Research PDF-document This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Cambridge University Press at https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical- journal/article/accepting-the-omen-external-referece-in-greek- declamation/8BA4316403B966605EE9736C2311EAB0 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher. University of Bristol - Explore Bristol Research General rights This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the reference above. Full terms of use are available: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/red/research-policy/pure/user-guides/ebr-terms/ 1 ACCEPTING THE OMEN: EXTERNAL REFERENCE IN GREEK DECLAMATION William Guast University of Bristol, UK* Abstract: Traditional accounts of Greek declamation paint this important imperial genre as a flight from the alleged impotence of Greek cities under Roman rule into a nostalgic fantasy of the autonomy of the Classical past. But there is clear evidence of declaimers using their works to refer to the world outside the fiction, often to the immediate performance context, and above all to themselves. This paper examines examples from Aelius Aristides, Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists, and Polemo, and shows that such a practice facilitated vigorous and eloquent communication, while also allowing for any external message to be plausibly denied. Introduction Λολλιανὸς δὲ ὁ Ἐφέσιος προὔστη μὲν τοῦ Ἀθήνησι θρόνου πρῶτος, προὔστη δὲ καὶ τοῦ Ἀθηναίων δήμου στρατηγήσας αὐτοῖς τὴν ἐπὶ τῶν ὅπλων, ἡ δὲ ἀρχὴ αὕτη πάλαι μὲν κατέλεγέ τε καὶ ἐξῆγεν ἐς τὰ πολέμια, νυνὶ δὲ τροφῶν ἐπιμελεῖται καὶ σίτου ἀγορᾶς.
    [Show full text]
  • The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
    The meditations of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Originally translated by Meric Casaubon About this edition Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus was Emperor of Rome from 161 to his death, the last of the “Five Good Emperors.” He was nephew, son-in-law, and adoptive son of Antonius Pius. Marcus Aurelius was one of the most important Stoic philosophers, cited by H.P. Blavatsky amongst famous classic sages and writers such as Plato, Eu- ripides, Socrates, Aristophanes, Pindar, Plutarch, Isocrates, Diodorus, Cicero, and Epictetus.1 This edition was originally translated out of the Greek by Meric Casaubon in 1634 as “The Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius,” with an Introduction by W.H.D. Rouse. It was subsequently edited by Ernest Rhys. London: J.M. Dent & Co; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, 1906; Everyman’s Library. 1 Cf. Blavatsky Collected Writings, (THE ORIGIN OF THE MYSTERIES) XIV p. 257 Marcus Aurelius' Meditations - tr. Casaubon v. 8.16, uploaded to www.philaletheians.co.uk, 14 July 2013 Page 1 of 128 LIVING THE LIFE SERIES MEDITATIONS OF MARCUS AURELIUS Chief English translations of Marcus Aurelius Meric Casaubon, 1634; Jeremy Collier, 1701; James Thomson, 1747; R. Graves, 1792; H. McCormac, 1844; George Long, 1862; G.H. Rendall, 1898; and J. Jackson, 1906. Renan’s “Marc-Aurèle” — in his “History of the Origins of Christianity,” which ap- peared in 1882 — is the most vital and original book to be had relating to the time of Marcus Aurelius. Pater’s “Marius the Epicurean” forms another outside commentary, which is of service in the imaginative attempt to create again the period.2 Contents Introduction 3 THE FIRST BOOK 12 THE SECOND BOOK 19 THE THIRD BOOK 23 THE FOURTH BOOK 29 THE FIFTH BOOK 38 THE SIXTH BOOK 47 THE SEVENTH BOOK 57 THE EIGHTH BOOK 67 THE NINTH BOOK 77 THE TENTH BOOK 86 THE ELEVENTH BOOK 96 THE TWELFTH BOOK 104 Appendix 110 Notes 122 Glossary 123 A parting thought 128 2 [Brought forward from p.
    [Show full text]
  • Paganism and Idolatry in Near Eastern Christianity
    Durham E-Theses 'The Gods of the Nations are Idols' (Ps. 96:5): Paganism and Idolatry in Near Eastern Christianity NICHOLS, SEBASTIAN,TOBY How to cite: NICHOLS, SEBASTIAN,TOBY (2014) 'The Gods of the Nations are Idols' (Ps. 96:5): Paganism and Idolatry in Near Eastern Christianity, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/10616/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 Sebastian Toby Nichols ‘The Gods of the Nations are Idols’ (Ps. 96:5): Paganism and Idolatry in Near Eastern Christianity This thesis will explore the presentation in Christian literature of gentile religious life in the Roman Near East in the first few centuries AD. It will do so by performing a close study of three sources – the Syriac Oration of Meliton the Philosopher, the Syriac translation of the Apology of Aristides, and the Greek Address to the Greeks of Tatian.
    [Show full text]
  • Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-48147-2 — Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture Reviel Netz Index More Information
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-48147-2 — Scale, Space and Canon in Ancient Literary Culture Reviel Netz Index More Information Index Aaker, Jennifer, 110, 111 competition, 173 Abdera, 242, 310, 314, 315, 317 longevity, 179 Abel, N. H., 185 Oresteia, 197, 200, 201 Academos, 189, 323, 324, 325, 337 papyri, 15 Academy, 322, 325, 326, 329, 337, 343, 385, 391, Persians, 183 399, 404, 427, 434, 448, 476, 477–8, 512 portraits, 64 Achilles Tatius, 53, 116, 137, 551 Ptolemaic era, 39 papyri, 16, 23 Aeschylus (astronomer), 249 Acta Alexandrinorum, 87, 604 Aesop, 52, 68, 100, 116, 165 adespota, 55, 79, 81–5, 86, 88, 91, 99, 125, 192, 194, in education, 42 196, 206, 411, 413, 542, 574 papyri, 16, 23 Adkin, Neil, 782 Aethiopia, 354 Adrastus, 483 Aetia, 277 Adrastus (mathematician), 249 Africa, 266 Adrianople, 798 Agatharchides, 471 Aedesius (martyr), 734, 736 Agathocles (historian), 243 Aegae, 479, 520 Agathocles (peripatetic), 483 Aegean, 338–43 Agathon, 280 Aegina, 265 Agias (historian), 373 Aelianus (Platonist), 484 agrimensores, 675 Aelius Aristides, 133, 657, 709 Ai Khanoum, 411 papyri, 16 Akhmatova, Anna, 186 Aelius Herodian (grammarian), 713 Albertus Magnus, 407 Aelius Promotus, 583 Albinus, 484 Aenesidemus, 478–9, 519, 520 Alcaeus, 49, 59, 61–2, 70, 116, 150, 162, 214, 246, Aeolia, 479 see also Aeolian Aeolian, 246 papyri, 15, 23 Aeschines, 39, 59, 60, 64, 93, 94, 123, 161, 166, 174, portraits, 65, 67 184, 211, 213, 216, 230, 232, 331 Alcidamas, 549 commentaries, 75 papyri, 16 Ctesiphon, 21 Alcinous, 484 False Legation, 22 Alcmaeon, 310
    [Show full text]
  • Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology
    SELECT EPIGRAMS FROM THE GREEK ANTHOLOGY J. W. MACKAIL∗ Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. PREPARER’S NOTE This book was published in 1890 by Longmans, Green, and Co., London; and New York: 15 East 16th Street. The epigrams in the book are given both in Greek and in English. This text includes only the English. Where Greek is present in short citations, it has been given here in transliterated form and marked with brackets. A chapter of Notes on the translations has also been omitted. eti pou proima leuxoia Meleager in /Anth. Pal./ iv. 1. Dim now and soil’d, Like the soil’d tissue of white violets Left, freshly gather’d, on their native bank. M. Arnold, /Sohrab and Rustum/. PREFACE The purpose of this book is to present a complete collection, subject to certain definitions and exceptions which will be mentioned later, of all the best extant Greek Epigrams. Although many epigrams not given here have in different ways a special interest of their own, none, it is hoped, have been excluded which are of the first excellence in any style. But, while it would be easy to agree on three-fourths of the matter to be included in such a scope, perhaps hardly any two persons would be in exact accordance with regard to the rest; with many pieces which lie on the border line of excellence, the decision must be made on a balance of very slight considerations, and becomes in the end one rather of personal taste than of any fixed principle. For the Greek Anthology proper, use has chiefly been made of the two ∗PDF created by pdfbooks.co.za 1 great works of Jacobs,
    [Show full text]
  • View / Download 2.4 Mb
    Lucian and the Atticists: A Barbarian at the Gates by David William Frierson Stifler Department of Classical Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ William A. Johnson, Supervisor ___________________________ Janet Downie ___________________________ Joshua D. Sosin ___________________________ Jed W. Atkins Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classical Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 ABSTRACT Lucian and the Atticists: A Barbarian at the Gates by David William Frierson Stifler Department of Classical Studies Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ William A. Johnson, Supervisor ___________________________ Janet Downie ___________________________ Joshua D. Sosin ___________________________ Jed W. Atkins An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Classical Studies in the Graduate School of Duke University 2019 Copyright by David William Frierson Stifler 2019 Abstract This dissertation investigates ancient language ideologies constructed by Greek and Latin writers of the second and third centuries CE, a loosely-connected movement now generally referred to the Second Sophistic. It focuses on Lucian of Samosata, a Syrian “barbarian” writer of satire and parody in Greek, and especially on his works that engage with language-oriented topics of contemporary relevance to his era. The term “language ideologies”, as it is used in studies of sociolinguistics, refers to beliefs and practices about language as they function within the social context of a particular culture or set of cultures; prescriptive grammar, for example, is a broad and rather common example. The surge in Greek (and some Latin) literary output in the Second Sophistic led many writers, with Lucian an especially noteworthy example, to express a variety of ideologies regarding the form and use of language.
    [Show full text]
  • 129 Sebastian P. Brock, an Introduction to Syriac
    BOOK REVIEWS Sebastian P. Brock, An Introduction to Syriac Studies (revised second edition). (Gorgias Handbooks 4; Gorgias Press: Piscataway, NJ, 2006) Pp. ix + 78. Paperback, $29.00. REVIEWED BY ROBERT A. KITCHEN, KNOX-METROPOLITAN UNITED CHURCH [1] It has seldom been an easy task to venture into the study of things Syriac. There are few places, even many theological institutions, where mention of the Syriac language and its churches elicits a response of recognition. Sources and reference materials, therefore, are not readily located, so where to begin is a matter of first importance. Sebastian Brock’s second small volume recently republished in an updated edition remedies the situation. An Introduction to Syriac Studies was written originally in 1980 for a publication in Birmingham targeted towards undergraduates, but over time became inaccessible to most students. Kristian Heal of the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (CPART) at Brigham Young University first rescued the publication from no-longer-in-print status and published it electronically on the CPART website. Now Gorgias Press has reissued the book with a number of additions and updates which Brock happily notes is the good sign of significant growth and interest in the field of Syriac studies. [2] This may be called an introduction, but it is worth the time reading through for any student or experienced scholar. Particularly helpful are the initial sections on “what is Syriac” and “why one should study it,” matters typically raised by all sorts of people, but seldom answered in an articulate way. The section on the scope of Syriac literature is all too brief, but after all this is intended only to be an introduction, so Brock continually points the reader towards other more in-depth resources.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bare Necessities: Ascetic Indian Sages in Philostratus' 'Life of Apollonius'
    W&M ScholarWorks Undergraduate Honors Theses Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 5-2011 The Bare Necessities: Ascetic Indian Sages in Philostratus' 'Life of Apollonius' Samuel McVane College of William and Mary Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses Part of the Classical Literature and Philology Commons Recommended Citation McVane, Samuel, "The Bare Necessities: Ascetic Indian Sages in Philostratus' 'Life of Apollonius'" (2011). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 362. https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/362 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Undergraduate Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Introduction One might not think that much direct contact occurred between the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome and ancient India. The civilizations lay thousands of miles apart, a vast distance for men who traveled by foot or horse. But in fact, we have much evidence, both material and literary, for rather extensive contact – economic, military, and cultural – between the ancient East and West. One of the most interesting interactions, in my opinion, was the intellectual exchange between the West and ancient Indian philosophers, sages, and religious thinkers. Fortunately, we have a great body of extant ancient Western literature – primarily in Greek – that provide numerous accounts and descriptions, historic, pseudo- historic, and fictional, of Indian wise men and their interactions with the West. This body of literature particularly focuses on portrayals of Indian ascetics who lived a very frugal lifestyle, scorning most material needs, in the pursuit of knowledge.
    [Show full text]