In another incident, Fronto gently chides an acquaintance for wrongly using a plural of the collective noun arena, or “sand” (NA 19.8.3–18). Fronto’s recollection of what Julius Caesar had to say on the point is verified when a copy of Caesar’s De Analogia “is brought forward” (“prolato libro”; NA 19.8.7) by some unnamed participant in the event. But Fronto modestly admits to not knowing the full story on why some nouns are only singular, some only plural, and encourages his interlocutor to keep an eye out for telling examples when reading reputable authors from the past. It’s left to Gellius to explain that Fronto almost certainly knew what would be found in those other authors, but wanted his audience to get in the habit of looking things up for themselves (which Gellius, characteristically, proceeds to do). Fronto, even more than Favorinus, knows when to speak and when to remain silent and how to use erudition to socially productive ends. Like Favorinus, the Latin rhetor Antonius Romanus, and Gellius’s respected teacher Sulpicius Apollinaris, the Fronto of the Attic Nights serves as an antitype to all of those brash and boorish characters whose learning is superficial and eloquence too ready for their own good. To what extent any of these characters resembled in real life their depictions by Gellius is impossible to say. But through them Gellius constructs an idealized Roman intellectual coterie composed of those who are neither too young nor too brash nor, it would seem, too Greek. Like Pliny before him, he seeks to adapt contemporary Greek cultural practices to longstanding Latin norms of practicality and restraint. His network of gentlemen-scholars, like Greek sophists in their own cities, of course uses cultural capital and linguistic discrimination to differentiate themselves from the common people in their midst. But in the writings of Pliny and Gellius that differentiation still must follow distinctively Roman or Latin protocols of self-presentation. Latin literary and intellectual culture, on their view, has the power and right to establish and enforce its own norms.
BELATED BELATEDNESS
For all their apparent confidence, Pliny, Fronto, and perhaps especially Gellius protest too much. That is to say, their representation of a distinctively Latin style of erudition and distinctively Roman use of declamation may be, in historical terms, too little too late. Or to put it yet another way, they (unfortunately) got what they wished for: practical, political Latin contrasted with cultural, sophisticated Greek. The rise of Hellenophile emperors, such as Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius, seems to have precipitated just such a split and with it a diminution in the quantity and quality of Latin letters (Bardon 1952, 2:190–248). Indeed, emperors had long been promoters of a certain version of Hellenism in opposition to the Western aristocracy’s insistence on the preeminence of Latin. In this context it’s unsurprising that the early emperors most often cited for their philhellenism (i.e., Nero and Domitian) receive the harshest treatment in Latin literary and historical sources. But their indulgence in Greek-style amusements was indeed child’s play compared to what came later, such as the disproportionate role of Greek under the Severans. Although the role of empress Julia Domna in fostering Greek intellectual culture is still subject to debate (e.g., Bowersock 1969; Levick 2007, 107–123), it is nonetheless noteworthy that Greek writers such as Philostratus, Galen, Dio Cassius, Athenaeus, and perhaps Diogenes Laertius plied their trade in Rome without evident pushback from a Latin intelligentsia. (Surviving Latin writing from the period deals chiefly with juridical matters.) The Greek Second Sophistic ended in part because Greek intellectuals became central to the cultural life of Rome. What would be the point of articulating a nostalgic Greek alternative to Roman dominance at a time when the Roman court consisted of Greek-speaking royals of African and Syrian descent? For a writer like Philostratus, the history to be recovered is that of the sophists themselves, in particular the stories of intellectual showmen like Apollonius of Tyana (to whom he devoted eight books of biography), Polemon of Smyrna (VS 530–543), or Favorinus of Arelate (VS 489–492). As so often in cultural history, to assign a name to a movement—as Philostratus did to the Second Sophistic—is akin to writing its obituary.
If the spread of Roman power was a key factor in the rise of the Greek Second Sophistic, the fracturing and reconfiguration of the Roman Empire eventually led to a Latin movement of a comparable sort. A sense of displacement and deracination and a perceived need to reconnect with a lost past through erudition and purification of language characterize the Latin literature not of the first and second centuries CE but of the fourth. Figures like Symmachus, Praetextatus, the various writers of the late antique Latin panegyrics (panegyrici latini), and the professors of Bordeaux commemorated by Ausonius are perhaps the closest equivalents Latin literature offers to the writers of the Greek Second Sophistic.
To take but one example, Attius Tiro Delphidius, born at Bordeaux in the early fourth century CE, victor as a boy in a poetry contest to honor Jupiter, abandoned poetry and instead used his “tidal rush of eloquence” (Auson. Prof. Burd. 5.9) to curry favor with the emperor Julian through prosecution of an ex-governor who probably also hailed from a distinguished intellectual clan (Sivan 1993a, 91–93, and 1993b). Although his lawsuit failed, he achieved sufficient prominence to attach himself to the imperial usurper Procopius when he moved to Constantinople, only to be expelled upon his death. The poet—and imperial advisor—Ausonius expresses a certain malicious pleasure at Delphidius’s swift rise and fall, yet nonetheless admires his “eloquence, learning, and speed of thought and speech” (Auson. Prof. Burd. 5.1), applying a phrase—“more torrentis freti”—reminiscent of earlier Latin depictions of Greek sophists (e.g., “Isaeo torrentior” at Juv. 3.74; cf. Smith 1997). Like Pliny writing of Licinianus, Ausonius uses the case of Delphidius implicitly to reflect on his own situation. Ausonius, too, had used rhetorical and poetic prowess to approach the heights of power, serving as tutor and adviser to the emperor Gratian, only to find himself confined to the hinterlands when the political pendulum swung in another direction (Green 1991; Shanzer 1998). And like Delphidius, Ausonius made the circuit of Gallic cities in pursuit of learning and fame, without neglecting his early local ties.
What differentiates the pair Ausonius-Delphidius from Pliny-Licinianus is of course Pliny’s ability to remain near the center of power. His authority as a writer depends to a large degree on his political and social standing. Ausonius, Delphidius, and Licinianus must continually draw upon their cultural capital to remain in the public eye. In this sense, they are no different from the vast majority of Greek sophists. And like the earlier Greek sophists, the Latin writers of the fourth century frequently evoke a classical past from which they are separated by an almost unbridgeable gap. For example, in his speech of thanksgiving to Gratian for naming him consul, the most recent example of a teacher so honored by an emperor that Ausonius can cite is Fronto, who flourished some two centuries earlier (Auson. Grat. act. 32). On the one hand, Ausonius valorizes his relationship with Gratian by citing Seneca, Quintilian, and Fronto as predecessors; yet, on the other hand, he calls attention to the gulf separating his historical period from theirs. As various modern historians have argued, Ausonius and his fellow Gallic aristocrats grappled with a displacement from the mainstream of Roman culture that was both geographic (Gaul versus Italy, Trier versus Constantinople) and temporal (i.e., the rupture caused by the breakaway imperium Galliarum of the third century CE).
In their attempts to reestablish a connection with classical Rome, Gallic aristocrats like Ausonius echo the recovery efforts of Greek sophists with respect to their own past. Display oratory, erudition, renewed study of early imperial authors, attention to local tradition (on which, see König 2007), and especially the self-conscious classicizing of the Latin language all correspond to the efforts of first- and second-century CE Greek intellectuals to resist the disorienting effects of Roman military and political domination. Ausonius, his contemporaries, and the professors and kinsmen he honors in his poetry faced an historical situation that had little in common with the early imperial Rome whose Latin authors they ech
oed, imitated, and praised, but resembled, perhaps more than they knew, the challenges and opportunities faced by Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, and Herodes Atticus.
THE EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE?
Modern scholars’ identification of displacement as both the historical origin and governing trope of a Second Sophistic, whether Latin or Greek, receives corroboration from the career of the one second-century writer who unabashedly plays the part of Latin sophist, namely Apuleius of Madaura. As Sandy and Harrison have noted, Apuleius’s career and writings follow the pattern of contemporary Greek intellectual performers (Harrison 2000; Sandy 1997; the critique of Swain 2001 seems overstated). Apuleius is wealthy, from the provinces, has important connections outside his home town, and uses his superior education to maintain and improve his social standing. Although his novel The Golden Ass is his best-known work, his oeuvre included popularizing philosophy and translations of Greek scholarly or technical studies. Especially relevant to his reputation as a sophist is the collection known as Florida, or “Choice Blooms,” which seems to be an editor’s selection of passages from Apuleius’s writings and speeches that can be used to illustrate rhetorical devices and motifs (Harrison 2000). The process of selection turned Apuleius’s writing into a miscellany of its own, with topics ranging from description of Carthage, to extended metaphor of philosopher as bird, to edifying anecdotes about Socrates.
Another important work by Apuleius, his Apologia, or defense speech at a trial on a charge of magic, reveals the extent to which sophistic developments could inform the tried-and-true Roman genre of courtroom oratory. On the one hand, the speech reflects the ample style, legal knowledge, respect for written documents, and attention to the characteristics of the particular audience that are manifest in the best of Ciceronian oratory and serve as hallmarks of traditional Roman rhetorical training (e.g. Quintilian). Yet, on the other hand, the speech also contains passages that would have struck Cicero and probably even Pliny as strange digressions: a discourse on mirrors that closely resembles Seneca’s diatribe in Natural Questions; an exploration of ichthyology; long citations, with analysis, of amatory poetry. Unlike the proper Roman orator, who through strict adherence to rules of dress and deportment strives not to make a spectacle of himself, Apuleius is all too happy to have the audience inspect his looks, his finances, his taste in food. These innovations are in some sense justified by the most striking innovation of all, namely that Apuleius defends himself, in contrast to the classical practice of having a patron do one’s talking. Apuleius even goes so far as to boast that he baited his opponents into filing their suit against him. Whatever the circumstances of the trial that prompted the Apology, Apuleius leaves the impression that he relishes the opportunity to put himself and his skills onstage, and repeatedly contrasts his virtuosity with his rivals’ ineptitude and imperfect education (e.g., Apol. 55, 66, 83, 100). Trying to win based on who one is rather than the facts of the case is a standard feature of classical rhetoric. But Apuleius aims to win based on what he knows and how he talks. His confidence in linguistic surface, more than anything else, marks him as a Latin sophist.
But not a Roman sophist, or at least not a Latin sophist at Rome. As far as we can tell, Apuleius spent his career almost exclusively in Roman North Africa. Like his Greek counterparts, he is linked to but not part of the imperial metropole. His education and rhetorical skill differentiate him from the vast majority of locals, but aren’t enough to allow integration into the center of power. If Greek sophists, generally speaking, reclaim an idealized Greek past as an alternative source of cultural authority to the political and military power of Rome, Apuleius replicates their strategies of self-promotion in an equivalently non-Roman context. Both he and his Greek sophistic contemporaries strive to overcome a sense of displacement from an authorizing past or present sources of power, through self-promotion, agonism, wit, and erudition. Their style—both personal and literary—is strikingly different from that of their Latin rivals and contemporaries, who promulgated, for as long as possible, the myth of the self-contained, practical, concise, manly Roman.
CONCLUSION
Was there a Latin Second Sophistic during the first and second centuries CE? Yes, but not one that most Latin authors would care to admit to. Although they interacted with Greek intellectuals, practiced and listened to declamations, studied the classics of their own and of the Greek literary tradition, and were proud of their learning, much of it Greek in origin, they insisted that their efforts were directed toward utility rather than enjoyment, communal rather than individual improvement, and circulation among readers rather than performance before adoring crowds. Although they sought to transmit knowledge, they resisted becoming teachers for pay. They prided themselves on their ethical comportment rather than their physical presence and charisma as performers. Through their subtle self-definition in contrast to Greek sophists, writers like Pliny, Gellius, and Fronto both sought and promoted the political and social advantages that still accrued to a Latin-speaking intellectual elite centered on the city of Rome.
FURTHER READING
On Pliny’s self-presentation, and especially his attitude toward performance and reading, see Gurd 2012. The history of declamation at Rome is treated succinctly by Winterbottom 1984. Gunderson 2000 and Habinek 2005 discuss the centrality of proper oratorical comportment for elite Roman male identity. Roman writers’ disdain for Greeks is well documented by Petrochilos 1974, but there seems to be no corresponding study of Roman imitation or adaptation of Greek practices during the period in question. Aulus Gellius has received a great deal of attention in recent years: Holford-Strevens and Vardi 2003, Gunderson 2009, Keulen 2009, and Rust 2009 offer a range of perspectives on his aims and achievements. On Fronto, Champlin 1980 is still the standard work. Swain 2004 is insightful on his relationship with Marcus Aurelius. Harrison 2000 is a good introduction to the literary career of Apuleius. For Latin literature of the fourth century CE, Green 1991 is a helpful starting point. Herzog 1989 is a comprehensive reference, in German. For key issues and themes characteristic of early imperial Latin literature, see Bartsch 1993 and Vout 2007. In general, study of Roman intellectual cultuare is still hampered by longstanding disciplinary divides between Greek and Latin, poetry and prose, nd literature, philosophy, and history. The present chapter is a small attempt at offering a more integrated account.
Appendix: Key Latin Authors, 60–250 CE
Persius Flaccus, Aulus, 34–62. Satire
Lucan, 39–65. Epic poetry, epigram
Seneca the Younger, 4 BCE to 65 CE. Prose dialogue, letters, tragedies
Petronius Arbiter, ob. 66? Novel, prose and verse
Pliny the Elder, 23/24–79. History, natural history
Silius Italicus, ca. 26–102. Epic poetry
Quintilian, ca. 35 to ca. 95. Treatises on rhetoric
Frontinus, ob. 103/4. Technical manuals.
Martial, ca. 40 to before 104. Epigram
Statius, Publius Papinius, ca. 50 to ca. 96. Poetry, epic and praise
Pliny the Younger, 61–112. Letters, panegyric
Tacitus, ca. 56 to ca. 125. Prose dialogue, history
Suetonius, ca. 70 to ca. 130? Prose biography, miscellany
Juvenal, fl. 110–130. Satire
Fronto (= Marcus Cornelius Fronto), ca. 95 to ca. 166. Oratory declamation, letters
Marcus Aurelius, 121–180. Latin letters (included in correspondence with Fronto), Greek philosophical memoirs
Apuleius, b. ca. 125. Novel, declamation, forensic oratory
Aulus Gellius, b. ca. 125. Prose miscellany.
Hyginus, perhaps second century CE. Handbooks of mythology and astronomy
Sextus Pompeius Festus, late second century CE. Scholar, abridger
Aemilius Papinianus, ob. 212. Jurist
Domitius Ulpianus, ob. 223. Jurist
Iulius Paulus, fl. first quarter third century CE. Jurist
Tertullian, ca. 160 to ca. 240. Christian doctrine and apologetic<
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Minucius Felix, fl. 200–240. Christian apologetic
Censorinus, fl. 238. Grammarian
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bardon, H. 1952. La littérature latine inconnue. 2 vols. Paris.
Bartsch, S. 1993. Actors in the Audience: Theatricality and Doublespeak from Nero to Hadrian. Cambridge, MA.
Bowersock, G. W. 1969. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford.
Champlin, E. 1980. Fronto and Antonine Rome. Cambridge, MA.
Green, R. 1991. The Works of Ausonius. Oxford.
Gunderson, E. 2000. Staging Masculinity: The Rhetoric of Performance in the Roman World. Ann Arbor, MI.
Gunderson, E. 2009. “Nox Philologiae”: Aulus Gellius and the Fantasy of the Roman Library. Madison, WI.
Gurd, S. 2012. Work in Progress: Literary Revision as Social Performance in Ancient Rome. Oxford and New York.
Habinek, T. 2005. Ancient Rhetoric and Oratory. Oxford and Malden, MA.
Harrison, S. J. 2000. Apuleius: A Latin Sophist. Oxford.
Hauler, E., and P. J. van den Hout, eds. 1988. M. Cornelii Frontonis epistulae schedis tam editis quam ineditis. Leipzig.
Herzog, R., ed. 1989. Handbuch der lateinischen Literatur der Antike. Vol. 5, Restauration und Erneuerung, 284–374 n. Chr. Munich.
Holford-Strevens, L., and A. Vardi, eds. 2004. The Worlds of Aulus Gellius. Oxford.
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