The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

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  Rust, E. 2009. “Ex Angulis Secretisque Librorum”: Reading, Writing, and Using Miscellaneous Knowledge in the “Noctes Atticae”. PhD dissertation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

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  P A R TII

  LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY

  CHAPTER 4

  ATTICISM AND ASIANISM

  LAWRENCE KIM

  INTRODUCTION

  IN 1900, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Möllendorff published an article entitled “Asianismus und Atticismus” in which he sought to put to rest a scholarly debate, by then almost twenty-five years old, over the essential nature of the Second Sophistic. The dispute involved a number of prominent German scholars—including Erwin Rohde, Georg Kaibel, Wilhelm Schmid, and Eduard Norden—and centered on the relative importance of two stylistic tendencies within the Second Sophistic: on the one side, an “Asianic” (asianisch) style, described in predominantly pejorative terms and associated with word-play, musical rhythms, repetitive sound effects, parallelism, and balanced clauses; on the other, an “Attic” (attisch) style, self-consciously set against the “Asianic,” that hearkened back to the prose of fifth- and fourth-century Athenian writers. In his groundbreaking book on the ancient novel, Rohde had characterized imperial orators as “Asianic” (1876, 288–291), a view that he clarified (e.g., exempting Aelius Aristides) and amplified in his 1886 response to Kaibel (1885), who had argued that Atticism was in fact the driving ideology of the Second Sophistic. A year later, in the first volume of his monumental Der Atticismus (1887–1897, 1:27–71), Rohde’s student Schmid proposed that, while the initial generations of sophists may have been asianisch, an “Attic” turn had occurred in the second century CE, under the influence of the sophist Herodes Atticus. Finally, Norden (1898), in a spirit of compromise, suggested that Kaibel and Rohde had both been correct: the Second Sophistic (and indeed the entire history of Greek and Latin prose) was but one stage in an eternal struggle between what he now called the “new” (Asianic) and “old” (Attic) styles (cf. Norden 1898, 353–354).

  Wilamowitz’s article famously recast the terms of the debate. In fact, the article is much more expansive than its title might suggest; in it Wilamowitz provides a sweeping sketch of imperial Greek culture as a whole, one that would prove immensely influential for the better part of a century. To begin with, he pointed out that the term “Asian” was primarily a derogatory label cast upon one’s opponents and never used by individual orators to characterize their own style (1900, 7, 24–25). Moreover, it was only in use for roughly two generations, from ca. 50 BCE to ca. 20 CE; later uses of “Asian” all refer back to this era (1900, 1–7). Any reference to an “Asian” style for this period, or to an Attic vs. Asian split, was thus technically anachronistic. Nevertheless, Wilamowitz, following Rohde and Norden, asserted that Second Sophistic oratorical style could indeed be seen as connected to what was called “Asian” rhetoric in the late Hellenistic period; in this respect the Second Sophistic introduced nothing new (9–15). But in a more sweeping and significant move, Wilamowitz claimed that any alleged dispute about style in the Second Sophistic was of far less importance than the fact that all of the educated imperial Greek elite, whatever style it chose, strove to write and speak in the long-dead dialect of classical Attic in order to differentiate their language from the “regular” Greek of the masses (38–52). Wilamowitz’s argument thus fell in line with what was to become the standard view of the Second Sophistic in the twentieth century: a society caught in the grip of the past, inspired to “imitate” the great classical writers in a fossilized and lifeless Attic dialect rather than to employ the naturally developing language to create a truly contemporary literature.

  Nowadays, of course, this picture of a decrepit, epigonal culture has fallen out of favor, replaced by visions of vibrancy, innovation, and the creative transformation of literary heritage and tradition. But Wilamowitz’s article was successful in one respect; in its wake, scholars lost interest in Asianism, and focused their attention upon the linguistic or lexico-grammatical (rather than stylistic) Atticism that he had identified as the hallmark of Second Sophistic literature and culture. The most important recent work in this vein, for example, has taken up Wilamowitz’s insistence on the separation of elite, literary language from that of the masses and shown more extensively how central a role language played in the construction of elite Greek identity (Schmitz 1997, 67–96; 110–27; Swain 1996, 17–64).

  At the same time, the influence of Wilamowitz has perhaps masked the fact that some of the problems motivating the nineteenth-century debate have not yet fully been resolved. The scholarly proponents of Atticism and Asianism were focused on prose style (largely ignored in recent Second Sophistic literary criticism), but they were also arguing over the definition, vision, and evaluation of the Second Sophistic, and of Greek culture under the High Roman Empire as a whole. The scholars who felt that Second Sophistic culture was Asianic were responding to evidence provided by the texts themselves; the name itself may be misleading, pejorative, and inaccurate, but the tendencies it describes, especially those related to the styles of sophistic oratory, are very real. Moreover, the picture of the Second Sophistic presented by this evidence is somewhat at odds with the staid and conservative image suggested by accounts that focus on linguistic Atticism and the concomitant veneration of the past in imperial Greek culture. The tension between “old” and “new” styles articulated at the close of the nineteenth century speaks to a genuine ambivalence within the Second Sophistic, and, as I hope to show, it is this combination of a deep appreciation for the language and culture of the classical past and an enthusiasm for more flamboyant, artificial, and unclassical literary and oratorical styles that makes the period so interesting (cf. Whitmarsh 2005, 8–10).

  ATTICISM IN THE SECOND SOPHISTIC

  Let us begin with the words ἀττικισμός, “Atticism,” and ἀττικίζειν, “to Atticize” (the cognate te
rms ἀττίκισις, also “Atticism,” and ἀττικιστής, “Atticist,” are much rarer). In the classical era, ἀττικισμός primarily refers to the political or military act of “siding with Athens”; similarly, the verb ἀττικίζειν means “to side with the Athenians.” But in the Hellenistic and early imperial periods ἀττικίζειν is used more often in the sense of “to speak in the Attic (Athenian) dialect” and tends to appear in discussions where a contrast is being made between speaking Attic and other Greek dialects, like Doric or Aeolic (e.g., [Dem.] On Style 177; Dio Chrys. 10.23).

  By the mid- to late second century CE, however, we see a further broadening of usage: ἀττικίζειν means not only “to side with Athens” or “to speak Attic,” but also “to speak classical Attic,” that is “to Atticize.”1 The doctor and philosopher Galen of Pergamum (129 to ca. 215 CE) makes this clear in a passage criticizing the word usage of οἱ ἀττικίζοντες (“those speaking Attic”): “I have used words [τοῖς ὀνόμασιν] as people today use them [ὡςοἱ νῦν ἄνθρωποιχρῶνται], since I believe that it is better to teach matters clearly than to speak Attic in an archaic manner [τοῦ παλαιῶς ἀττικίζειν: De aliment. facult. p. 359 K].” Elsewhere, he is more specific, distinguishing the Greek spoken by the Athenians of his day (νῦν) from the Attic spoken by their counterparts “six hundred years ago” (οἱ πρὸ ἑξακοσίων ἐτῶν Ἀθηναῖοι: De aliment. facult. p. 585 K), that is, the fifth century BCE—in the period we call “classical.” Similar phrasing by Galen’s contemporaries suggests that by the second half of the second century CE the primary meaning of ἀττικίζειν is “to Atticize,” that is, to reproduce the orthography, morphology, vocabulary, and syntax of a dialect that had long since “died” out as a spoken tongue.

  Galen’s frequent fulminations against the Atticizing insistence on using obsolete terms for various fruits, vegetables, and plants illustrate how concerns about language purity had entered even into the more esoteric realms of pharmacology and dietetics (Herbst 1911; Manetti 2009; Swain 1996, 56–62). But the heart of Atticizing culture was undoubtedly the competitive sphere of imperial Greek oratory. Here our best sources are the satirist Lucian of Samosata (ca. 120–180 CE) and the biographer and belle-lettrist Philostratus of Lemnos (ca. 170–250 CE). Lucian’s corpus features several memorable figures whose language failings are mercilessly ridiculed or skewered: Lexiphanes, who is so obsessed with linguistic novelty that he produces unintelligible prose (Lexiph., esp. 22–25); the Solecist, who not only commits but does not even recognize egregious solecisms; the False Critic (Pseudol.), who is viciously attacked for laughing at Lucian’s incorrect use of the word ἀποφράς (“ill-omened”); and the Teacher of Rhetoric (Rhet. praec. 16), who cynically recommends learning only a few characteristically Attic expressions and sprinkling them into speeches to affect an Atticist manner (on these and other figures, see Hall 1981, 252–309; Jones 1972; Swain 1996, 45–49). In a lighter vein, the satirical Judgement of the Vowels (Hopkinson 2008, 151–160), where a jury of vowels hears Sigma’s suit against Tau for usurping his rightful position in many words (alluding to the characteristic -ττ- of Attic, preferred by Atticists over the -σσ- of koinê), shows how important dialectal details could be to those in Lucian’s social and intellectual circles (cf. further Demonax 26, Hist. conscr. 15; Ind. 26).

  In his Lives of the Sophists (VS), written in the 230s, Philostratus speaks of the Atticizing skill of several second- and early third-century CE orators (Herodes Atticus and Aristocles: VS 568; Pollux of Naucratis: 592; Athenodorus: 594; Aelian of Praeneste: 624), and tells the occasional anecdote illuminating the sophistic fascination with language purity: the orator Philagrus (whom some have identified with Lucian’s Lexiphanes) utters a word criticized as “outlandish” (ἔκφυλον: 578) by a rival’s students; when asked “in which of the eminent authors” such a word appears, he defiantly responds, “In Philagrus!” Herodes Atticus manages to obtain an interview with a primitive man from the interior of Attica who speaks a pure, unadulterated Attic (553); he also has a slave from India whose incongruous insertion of Attic words into his native tongue serves as amusement for his guests (490). Even the language of Philostratus’s Apollonius of Tyana is “Attic” (ἡ γλῶττα Ἀττικῶςεἶχεν: Vit. Apoll. 1.7)—never mind that the real Apollonius lived in the first century CE, prior to the advent of full-blown linguistic Atticism. Then again, Philostratus assures us that it was not “hyper-Atticizing” (οὐδ’. . . ὑπεραττικίζουσαν); “for [Apollonius] thought that an excessive degree of Attic was unpleasant” (ἀηδὲςγὰρτὸ ὑπὲρτὴνμετρίαν Ἀτθίδα ἡγεῖτο: 1.17).

  These examples point to the importance that speaking proper Attic commanded in rhetorical circles. Language use was one of the most obvious markers of “culture” or paideia, and by extension, elite status (Schmitz 1997, 83–91; Swain 1996, 17–42; Whitmarsh 2005, 45–47). In the intensely competitive, face-to-face performance culture of the Second Sophistic, one’s correct employment of language, and of Attic in particular, was under constant scrutiny and hence cause for considerable anxiety, especially since fluency in classical Attic, an artificial construct learned in school, was ultimately impossible for imperial speakers to attain. The potential for mistakes and the resulting humiliation and ridicule was always lurking in the background. The Philagrus anecdote testifies to this, as does the vehemence with which Galen and Lucian defend their language choices and attack those of others. But as the examples of Lexiphanes and Apollonius show, one could be accused of Atticizing too much as well as too little; the ideal—a proper, moderate, Attic—remained an elusive, constantly moving target.

  THE ATTIC LEXICA

  The existence of so-called Attic lexica—compilations of Attic words and forms along with their “translation” into “ordinary” Greek—suggests that the task faced by the would-be Atticist was difficult indeed (Strobel 2005, 2009; Swain 1996, 51–56). The Greek language, had, after all, undergone significant changes since the classical period. While details of its development are still debated, a prevalent view sees koinê, or “common” Greek (I use the term to refer to spoken and written postclassical Greek as a whole), as derived from a version of classical Attic, tinged with Ionic elements, that had spread throughout the eastern Mediterranean in the late fifth and fourth centuries BCE; in the wake of Alexander the Great’s conquests, this Greek established itself as the lingua franca of the Hellenistic and Eastern Roman empires (e.g., Adrados 2005, 175–198; Horrocks 1997, 32–47; López-Eire 1993; Thumb 1901). Although koinê was basically derived from classical Attic, it had from the beginning avoided many of Attic’s morphological peculiarities, such as the use of ττ instead of σσ (e.g., γλῶττα vs. γλῶσσα) and ρρ instead of ρσ, the “Attic” second declension (νεώς instead of ναός), the contracted forms of certain first and second declension nouns, athematic verb endings, and γίγνομαι and γιγνώσκω for γίνομαι and γινώσκω. In addition, certain syntactical features of classical Attic were no longer used as frequently or in the full range of their earlier functions, such as the dual number, the dative case, the middle voice, the perfect tense, the future infinitive, and the optative mood, among others (Blass, Debrunner, and Rehkopf 2001; Browning 1983, 24–43; Debrunner and Scherer 1969, 104–125; Schmid 1887–1897, 4:579–734). Lexically, the vocabulary of koinê was far more extensive than its Attic counterpart; at the same time various Attic terms had fallen out of use, while others that remained had developed different meanings.

  Although Hellenistic scholars like Aristophanes of Byzantium and Crates of Mallus had devoted studies to the Attic dialect (Broggiato 2000; Tosi 1997), the first extant Attic dictionaries—by Pausanias, Aelius Dionysius, and Irenaeus—date from the first century CE. These, however, were neither concerned with prescribing the proper use of Attic nor intended as Atticizing aids, but wer
e presumably designed to help people read canonical works written in classical Attic (Erbse 1950; Strobel 2011, 16–72). It is only in the second century CE that explicitly prescriptive lexica appear, devoted to assisting the budding orator in speaking or writing it, a much more onerous undertaking. The best examples of this latter type from our period are two late second-century CE works by Phrynichus (from Bithynia or Arabia)—the Selection of Attic Words (Eclog. = Ἐκλόγη ὀνομάτων: Fischer 1974; Rutherford 1881) and the Sophistic Toolbox (Praep. = Σοφιστικὴ προπαρασκεύη, extant only in a tenth-century epitome: de Borries 1911)—and the more laconic Atticist by the otherwise unknown Moeris (probably third century CE: Hansen 1998).

  Moeris’s work is more user-friendly; the entries are in alphabetical order (albeit only as far as the first letter), and usually consist of an “Attic” word or form, indicated by a word such as Ἀττικοί, i.e., “[the word which] the Attic [speakers use],” followed by its “Greek” equivalent, identified by the word Ἕλληνες, i.e., “[the word which] the Greeks [use]” (on the enigmatic third term, κοινόν, “common,” see Hansen 1998, 9; Strobel 2011, 192–208; Swain 1996, 52). A glance at some of Moeris’s entries illustrates the range of mistakes to which students or sophists might have been susceptible without his help:

  Ζ 1: ζεύγνυμι Ἀττικοί· ζευγνύω Ἕλληνες [loss of athematic ending]

  “I gird myself”: Attics; “I gird myself”: Greeks.

  Σ 23: Σωκράτη Ἀττικῶς· Σωκράτην Ἕλληνες [assimilation of third declension contracted accusative ending to first declension]

  “Socrates [acc.]”: Attic; “Socrates [acc.]”: Greeks.