Erotic Language and Representations of Desire in the Philostratean Erotic Letters Erotic Language and Representations of Desire in the Philostratean Erotic Letters Antonios Pontoropoulos Dissertation presented at Uppsala University to be publicly examined in Humanistiska Teater, Thunbergsvägen 3 (Campus Engelska Parken), Uppsala, Saturday, 21 September 2019 at 14:00 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The examination will be conducted in English. Faculty examiner: Associate Professor (Dr.) Owen Hodkinson (University of Leeds, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies). Abstract Pontoropoulos, A. 2019. Erotic Language and Representations of Desire in the Philostratean Erotic Letters. 240 pp. Uppsala: Department of Linguistics and Philology, Faculty of Languages, Uppsala. ISBN 978-91-506-2781-7. This doctoral dissertation focuses on a corpus of seventy-three prose letters from the Imperial period, titled Erotic Letters and attributed to Philostratus. In this letter collection, different anonymous letter writers address male and female recipients who are mostly anonymous. I contextualize the Philostratean erotic discourse in terms of Greek Imperial literature and the rhetorical culture of the Second Sophistic. Unlike the letter corpora of Aelian and Alciphron, the Philostratean Letters take a strong interest in ancient pederasty. Furthermore, the ancient Greek novel provides a fruitful comparison for the study of this particular letter corpus. The Philostratean erotic discourse employs a series of etiquettes and erotic labels which trace back to earlier (classical or Hellenistic) periods of Greek literary history. In this sense, the Philostratean Erotic Letters situate themselves in a long-standing Greek erotic tradition and draw from the prestigious classical past. In the context of individual Philostratean letters, pederastic motifs are often employed in heterosexual narratives and subvert the expected erotic discourse. Heterosexual motifs (e.g. feet) are also employed in pederastic contexts thus creating a literary discourse, according to which there are all kinds of erotic possibilities and literary scenarios. The Letters construct the identities of the senders and the receivers as the Greek pepaideumenoi of the Imperial period. In this context, the erotic experience emphasizes the idea of literary and cultural paideia as being sexually stimulating. In the end, paideia is deemed worthier than actual sex. In all these respects, the letter corpus of the Philostratean Erotic Letters presents the reader with a unique and open-ended literary discourse, which equally juxtaposes different representations of erotic desire. Keywords: Ancient letters, Philostratus, Greek Imperial literature, Second Sophistic, ancient Greek novel, erotic desire, paideia. Antonios Pontoropoulos, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Box 635, Uppsala University, SE-75126 Uppsala, Sweden. © Antonios Pontoropoulos 2019 ISBN 978-91-506-2781-7 urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-389980 (http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-389980) Στη γιαγιά μου, με πολύ αγάπη. Στους γονείς μου. Cover picture: Wikimedia Commons: Mosaïque de sol dite le Jugement de Pâris. The Judgement of Paris. Marble, limestone and glass tesserae, 115–150 AD. From the Atrium House triclinium in Antioch-on-the-Orontes (Turkey). Attribution: Louvre Museum [CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)]. URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P1170845_Louvre_jugement_de_ P%C3%A2ris_Ma3443_rwk.jpg Acknowledgements My initiation into Philostratus’ Erotic Letters and the world of the ancient love letter started during a summer, four years ago. I would like to express my deepest thanks to a number of people who supported me during my stud- ies. I wish to thank especially my supervisors Ingela Nilsson, Dimitrios Iordanoglou and Helen Morales. Without them, this thesis would not have been possible. I would especially like to thank my main supervisor Ingela Nilsson for introducing me to the world of Greek Imperial literature and the Greek novel. I am grateful for all the discussions we have had all these years and which led to this doctoral dissertation. I am particularly thankful to Inge- la for all the effort she put in order to help me prepare my manuscript for publication. I am also indebted to Dimitrios Iordanoglou, my second supervisor, for being patient with me and for providing me with critical comments at all the stages of my dissertation. Without the fruitful discussions and criticism, this thesis would not look the same. For the moral support and encouragement too, I am indebted to both my supervisors. My external supervisor, Helen Morales, has provided me with critical in- sights and a wonderful academic environment during my stay in Santa Bar- bara. Her knowledge of Greek Imperial literature and modern literary theory has guided me through my studies and helped me understand the importance of reading critically ancient literary texts. My engagement with the academic environment of the University of California at Santa Barbara has, indeed, proven to be one of the most inspiring stages of my doctoral studies. I would also like to thank the Kung.Vitterhetsakademien for providing me with a scholarship that made my state in Santa Barbara easier. Moreover, I owe many thanks to the people of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul for providing me with an inspiring environment during the last stages of my dissertation. Special thanks go to the scholars of the Greek seminar of Uppsala Uni- versity, who have supported me and provided me with comments and dis- cussions, during all these years. Here, I would also like to express my grati- tude to my teachers David Westberg and Eric Cullhed who have guided through the world of Greek language history. Furthermore, I wish to thank the people of the narratology reading group of our department for providing me with narratological comments and insights especially in epistolary con- texts. I am deeply grateful to Owen Hodkinson and Tiziana Drago for all the critical comments and help. Moreover, I would like to thank them for letting me participate in the first conference of the International Network for the Study of ancient Love Letters. Their work has been truly insipiring for me. I am deeply grateful to David Konstan for providing me with critical feedback in different stages of my study. Additionally, my sincere thanks to Filippo Ronconi and Lucio Di Corso for letting me participate in the International Itinerant Paleography School 2018 and providing me with fruitful insights into the study of ancient manuscripts traditions, which is an essential part of my study. I would also like to thank Rafael Gallé Cejudo, Onofrio Vox and Dimitrios Raios for providing me with their close readings and theoretical remarks about the letter collections of the Imperial period. Finally, to my early teachers and mentors, Chrysanthi Tsitsiou-Chelidoni, Stavros Frangou- lidis, Karin Blomqvist and Vasileios Sabatakakis, I am deeply grateful for instilling me with an interest for the study of Hellenistic antiquity and the Greek world during all its different stages. They too helped me become the philologist I am today. Friends and colleagues are also included in my list of acknowledgements. My greatest thanks are due to Myrto Veikou, Samuel Douglas, Tuomo Nuor- luoto, Derek Haddad, Olga Faccani and Rodney Likaku for all the discus- sions and moral support they provided me with during all these years. I am very thankful to Samuel Douglas for reading my thesis and providing me with language comments and remarks. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family for supporting me during all the stages of my study. I dedi- cate this thesis to my grandma. I wish you could read it! Abbreviations AP Anthologia Palatina. LSJ Henry G. Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Jones, Roder- ick McKenzie, et al. (ed.), A Greek English Lexicon. With a revised supplement 1996. Oxford 1996. Contents 1. Introduction: The Philostratean Erotic Letters by Philostratus ................. 13 1.1. Aim and research questions ............................................................... 13 1.2. Philostratus and the Second Sophistic ............................................... 15 1.3. The manuscript tradition and the editions ......................................... 21 1.4. The Philostratean Erotic Letters ........................................................ 26 1.5. The question of genre ........................................................................ 30 1.6. The persona of the author and the personas of the letter writers ....... 34 1.7. Philostratean Intertextualities ............................................................ 36 1.8. State of research ................................................................................. 41 1.9. Theory and method: eros and erotic discourse .................................. 48 1.10. Concepts: pederasty and prostitutes ................................................ 52 2. Analysis: The structure and use of literary motifs and traditions ............. 55 2.1. From a narrative to an epigrammatic structuring of the letters ......... 55 2.2. Narrative segments as dissologic thematic clusters ........................... 60 2.3. The programmatic rose letters ........................................................... 63 2.4. Non-programmatic rose letters .......................................................... 79 2.5. Erotic gazing ...................................................................................... 95