The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  Yet the space which symbolized most of all the sophists’ cultural mission and their self-presentation to an audience was the gymnasium, both the site of many oral performances and a hub of intellectual life in general, so it was natural that it was the focus of much of their financial attentions. In this, as in much else, they followed a classical tradition (Delorme 1960). The fourth-century BC Athenian orator Lycurgus is said to have used his immense wealth not only to complete the Theater of Dionysus but also to build a “gymnasium near the so-called Lyceum,” in addition to sponsoring several state projects (Paus. 1.29.16; cf. IG II2.457.7–8, with Delorme 1960, 42–43). By the Roman Empire, gymnasia were among the largest public buildings of the cities of Roman Greece and Asia Minor, and had become symbols of education and Greek culture. As Trajan famously put it, “gymnasiis indulgent Graeculi” (Plin. Ep. 10.40.2).

  As is well known, the gymnasia of Asia Minor evolving between the first and third centuries CE had spacious palaestras devoted to athletic activities. The vast open spaces at the center of the palaestras accommodated athletic exercise and agonistic competitions, as at the Harbor Baths in Ephesus, probably associated with the revival of contests in honor of Zeus Olympios under Domitian (Barresi 2007, 138; Engelmann 1998, 305–307); an even larger area was given over to the palaestra in the gymnasium at Aezani, and in the Theater Baths at Ephesus rows of steps alongside the palaestra provided seating for spectators. At Aphrodisias, the vast “Portico of Tiberius” which gave access to the Baths of Hadrian was fortified with seating along the long sides which could have been used for sporting contests (Chaisemartin 1996). These settings were sumptuously decorated with marbles and mosaics in an ostentatious, almost glitzy manner. In the Harbor Baths at Ephesus, the prestigious colored marble from Docimium in Phrygia (pavonazzetto), with its bright purple vein polished to look like porphyry—a privilege of wealthy and well-connected donors (Fant 1993, 156)—was used for both the columns of the palaestra and the marble revetment of the back walls of the xystus (IvE 430, 661). The marbles used to decorate the Hadrianic gymnasium at Smyrna—Synnadic marble from Docimium, marble from Simitthus (Chemtou) in North Africa, and Egyptian porphyry—offered a gaudy combination of purple and blood-stained hues (ISmyrna 697.41–42).

  Alongside their buildings and exercise courts were sheltered colonnades (xystoi) enclosing garden areas, which offered ambulatories for strolling and discussing literary or philosophical concerns, and purpose-built structures for declamations. Such a space is found in the gymnasium at Pergamon (Schazmann 1923). Originally built in the early second century BCE, the upper terrace of the gymnasium was embellished under Trajan (Mathys, Stappmanns, and von den Hoff 2011, 273) or Hadrian (Radt 1988, 146), its Doric colonnades replaced by a marble architecture of the Corinthian order. The rebuilding involved the construction of a large auditorium on the west side of the main hall at the rear of the rectangular court which was excavated in 1906–7 (Dörpfeld 1908, 334–336; Schazmann 1923, 62; Radt 1988, 146–7; Mathys, Stappmanns, and von den Hoff 2011, 273). With a marbled exterior and a painted interior, its capacity is estimated at around 1,000. There was no stage, but the orator stood directly on the wooden floor (Radt 1988, 146). A sumptuous room was added, probably in the 160s, on the other side of the main hall (Dörpfeld 1907, 200–202; Hepding 1907, 347–349 no. 99; Schazmann 1923, 57; Radt 1988, 145). The gymnasium at Pergamon also probably included other spaces that were used as lecture halls.

  The first proper attempt to introduce the Greek gymnasium to Rome was the inauguration in 60 CE of the Gymnasium of Nero, “the most remarkable such building at Rome [θαυμασιώτατοντῶν ἐκεῖ].” The Cynic philosopher Demetrius infiltrated the ceremony and, in front of the emperor, senate, and equestrian order, in a manner not unlike the later Cynic Peregrinus at Olympia, “declaimed a speech against bathers, saying that they were effeminates who defiled themselves. Such things he tried to show were a useless extravagance” (Philostr. V A 4.42, trans. C. P. Jones). Yet if the bathing activities in the adjacent areas could be despised in this way as a modern fashion which sapped the strength—a specious argument, of course, as the now extensive evidence of Greek bathing culture demonstrates (Lucore and Trümper 2013)—the sporting and cultural activities of the gymnasium were a prized asset of Greek culture at Rome and in the Greek world, and were thought to encourage the mental and physical improvement of the citizen body. Little remains of Nero’s complex, which was completely rebuilt under Alexander Severus, but it seems to have consisted of the extension of Agrippa’s Horti by a new bathing area, the particular butt of Demetrius’s criticisms, and a palaestra comparable in size to classical Greek models (Krencker 1929, 264–265). It was of this complex that Domitian’s odeum, and the adjacent stadium, formed the western boundary, completing the creation in Rome of a gymnasium area in the Greek manner with gardens and spaces for reading and declamation (Ghini 2000; Nielsen 1990, 46). In the outer precinct of Trajan’s Baths it is even clearer how this imperial Roman concept of thermae was strongly shaped by the idea of a Greek gymnasium. Like Domitian’s odeum the work of Apollodorus, it continued to be known as a gymnasium into the third century (Dio Cass. 69.4.1; Volpe 2007, 428–429). Excavations between 2003 and 2006 have thrown more light on the imposing curvilinear exedras of brick-faced concrete still visible on the Oppian Hill, revealing a semicircular hall with marble seats incorporated off the portico of the palaestra in the manner of Vitruvius’s xystus, with seats for “philosophers, rhetors, and others” (Vitr. 5.11.1–2; Volpe 2007, 427). An inscription found in the area in the sixteenth century (Caldelli 1992) suggests that this space was used for ἡ ἱερὰ ξυστιχήσύνοδος, an athletic association established by the grandfather of the Ephesian athlete M. Ulpius Domesticus (IG 14.1054–1055; Volpe 2007, 431). The great third-century bath complexes of Caracalla and Domitian included not just spaces for athletics and gymnastic exercise but lecture rooms and rooms for intellectual discussion.

  At Ephesus, Vedius Antoninus Sabinianus did not only enlarge the Bouleuterion or Odeion, but also sponsored a new gymnasium building near the stadium (Steskal 2001). Yet Vedius’s gymnasium, now extensively analyzed and published in full (Steskal and La Torre 2008), shows no sign of custom-built auditoria for oral performances like that at Pergamon. The “marble hall” on the west side of the palaestra (formerly called the Kaisersaal), with its marbled walls, opus sectile floor, and statuary, might be imagined as an imposing setting for orations, but there is no clear evidence that it performed this role.

  The orator Flavius Damianus (Fischer 2014, 128–131) had extensive means at his disposal after marrying the daughter of Vedius Antoninus, Vedia Phaedrina. For Damianus, who allegedly paid 10000 drachmas to study with Aelius Aristides at Smyrna and Hadrian of Tyre at Ephesus, it was as important to make a show of wealth (ploutou epideixin) as a display of rhetoric (Philostr. VS 2.23, 605–606). In 166, in the tradition of the extravagant state benefaction of the Athenian Lycurgus, he donated 7000 tons of grain to Lucius Verus’s legions passing through Ephesus on his Parthian campaign.

  Damianus was himself magnificently endowed with wealth of various sorts, and not only maintained the poor of Ephesus, but also gave most generous aid to the State by contributing large sums of money and by restoring any public buildings that were in need of repair. Moreover, he connected the temple with Ephesus by making an approach to it along the road that runs through the Magnesian Gate. This work is a portico a stade in length, all of marble, and the idea of this structure is that the worshippers need not stay away from the temple in case of rain. When this work was completed at great expense, he inscribed it with a dedication to his wife, but the banqueting-hall in the temple he dedicated in his own name, and in size he built it to surpass all that exist elsewhere put together. He decorated it with an elegance beyond words, for it is adorned with Phrygian marble such as had never before been quarried. (Philostr. VS 2.23, 605)

  In such architecture Damianus found a real opportunity for sel
f-expression. His covered stoa from the Temple of Artemis (Knibbe and Langmann 1993, 16–27; Knibbe and Thür 1995, 26–33; Engelmann 1995, 77–85; Knibbe 1999, 449 and 2002, 207–211; Steskal, Grossschmidt, Heinz, Kanz, and Taeuber 2003) recalls Nicetes’s work at Smyrna and seems almost certainly designed not only in the context of the well-known civic competition between the two cities, but as an act of personal competition with the Smyrnaean sophist. The tomb monument of Damianus and Phaedrina, a Corinthian tholos, was erected beside this kathodos street, possibly close to Damianus’ villa estate (IvE 2100; Koenigs and Radt 1979, 317–318 and 345–348; Fischer 2014, 130n23). The banqueting hall in Phrygian marble offered a space for speaking to more select gatherings (Barresi 2007, 143 and fig. 3; Engelmann 1995, 79).

  Damianus might be thought to have been particularly interested in creating buildings that promoted his sophistic expertise more widely and enhanced his oratory. Two statue bases attest to his benefactions, including an oikos in the Baths of Varius on the Curetes Street (IvE 672, 3080). Nothing is said of the function of this room, but that his benefaction included “both the structure and the whole decoration.” At the same time, it has often been claimed that the palaestra of the East Baths was restored by Damianus and Phaedrina. In the later second century, this new space was given a monumental modern approach, a propylon entering a vestibule area of which the side walls had apses each crowned by an aedicule with composite capitals and decorated with statues of Dionysus, Venus, and Pan (Keil 1930, 30). Just inside the palaestra were two statues of barbarian prisoners emulating the Dacians of Trajan’s Forum in Rome (Keil 1930, 38), but presented instead as Persians, evoking both the legendary Persian Stoa at Sparta and Verus’s recent Parthian campaign (Barresi 2007, 148; Thomas 2013, 177–179). This architecture was also geared to more intellectual pursuits. The original porticoes were narrowed and two spacious rooms flanked the open space like exedras on either side, one of which served as an auditorium (Keil 1931, 31). On the east side of the palaestra and opposite the Kaisersaal, a room with benches running around the walls on three sides seems to have been used as an auditorium for declamations (Keil 1933, 9–10; Maccanico 1963, 44). It opened onto the palaestra by two side doors and one wider central door, which on the inner side had a porch supported by two columns carrying an acanthus frieze (Keil 1933, fig. 3). As the rear of the room was taken up by a base for statuary, the speaker is thought to have stood below or in front of the porch. So the excavator of the area, Josef Keil, imagined the scene (1933, col. 10):

  Anyone who recalls the splendid entrances of the rhetors and sophists of the second and third centuries described in Philostratus’s Lives and reflects that this newly discovered hall and the exedra were in all likelihood built by the famous Ephesian sophist Flavius Damianus, will understand that in the building of the auditorium was foreseen such a sumptuous context for the person of the speaker.2

  More recently, it has been suggested that a statue of Damianus himself, as both orator and donor of the building, may have stood here (Barresi 2007, 148). But Keil’s identification of the dedicator of the palaestra (IvE 439), whose wife or daughter seems to be named Anto[nina], with Damianus himself remains questionable (Burrell 2006, 448n45; Dillon 1996, 272; Steskal 2003, 232–233). To discover the true benefactor of the East Gymnasium awaits further analysis of the building.

  Nevertheless, the archaeology of the spaces here presents clear evidence of a change in the spatial uses of the palaestra from the later second century, from an essentially athletic character to one of intellectual activities and musical-cultural pursuits (Steskal 2003, 234–235). This also seems to be reflected in the choices of statuary, with images of religious and cultural subjects, including the Muses, replacing the athletic themes of Vedius’s earlier gymnasium (Barresi 2007, 147). In the earlier Harbor Baths at Ephesus, a bronze statue in the palaestra of an athlete cleaning his strigil evoked Lysippus’s notorious original on the theme (Lattimore 1972; Newby 2005, 232–233), but in the Severan period more moralizing themes became popular, such as the Punishment of Dirce, whose fountain at Thebes had become a symbol of the Greek gymnasium (Plut. De cup. 7, 526b; Favorinus fr. 96.7). Such a statue was installed in the hypaithron, an open-air space in the gymnasium at Thyateira in Lydia, by Aelius Aelianus (TAM 5.2.926), perhaps in emulation of the colossal version of the same story in the Baths of Caracalla at Rome, the celebrated ‘Farnese Bull’ (DeLaine 1997, 79). Aelianus also contributed statue groups with Heracles and Ganymede, but it was the Dirce group which was represented on the city’s coins (BMC Lydia 125–127). In the late Antonine period the enigmatic Building M at Side, which has all the characteristics of a gymnasium, was provided with lecture rooms; and the column façade facing onto the palaestra-like court was adorned with sculptures derived from classical models.

  A similar hall was built in the early third century in the gymnasium at Sardis and has been reconstructed as the “Marble Court.” The fifth- or sixth-century epigram, inscribed on the podium of its aedicular façade, appears to describe this hall as an “immense, high-roofed, gold-gleaming chamber,” and its new restoration as “with a golden ceiling” (Yegül 1986, 171–172 no. 8), like Lucian’s hall. Here one should probably not imagine a timber truss roof across the whole court, let alone a masonry roof, but, despite the grandiose rhetoric, a more modest structure like the “fountain for olive oil (elaiou krene) with a golden roof” in the gymnasium of Asclepius at Smyrna, which the sophist Heraclides of Lycia restored, “contributing to the beauty of Smyrna” (Philostr. VS 2.26, 613; Barresi 2007, 142). Archaeologists have suggested that it took the form of a cantilevered canopy with gilt wooden coffers projecting out over the aediculae (Yegül 1986, 65). If this was the case, the structure would have provided orators with both an august setting and an acoustic space with a sounding board like those at Aspendus and elsewhere. Alternatively, the innovative vaulted architecture of the early second-century baths gymnasium complex at Argos (BCH 98 [1974]) also offered an appealing receptacle for the orator’s voice (Lancaster 2015). Indeed, the arch poetic language of an inscription from the Agora, referring to waters “brought down from above” (BCH 102 [1978], 782–4 E 92; Spawforth and Walker 1986, 102–103 Walker 1987, 64), may preserve the rhetorical language of an oration delivered at the building’s dedication.

  The building at Athens itself that most resembles these gymnasia in Asia Minor is the so-called “Library of Hadrian.” As several scholars have recognised, its form of open precinct surrounded by spaces that might be used for lecture rooms or meetings is very similar to that of Greek gymnasia, as well as the Temple of Peace in Rome (Boatwright 1997; La Rocca 2014). The arrangement of columns around the complex suggests that the space might be the same as the location described by Pausanias, “the Hundred Columns of Phrygian marble,” which had rooms with gilded ceilings and ἀλαβάστρῳ λίθῳ (Paus. 1.18.9).

  12.4 DOMESTIC SPACE AND SOPHISTIC RHETORIC

  The inclusion of a gilt ceiling recalls Lucian’s description of the hall which he presents a remarkable venue for rhetorical delivery (De domo 4):

  Anyone who sees it and is trained in the arts of rhetoric would surely have an equal longing to make a speech in it, fill it with shouting and become himself a part of its beauty, rather than looking it all over, feeling amazed, and leaving, as if deaf and dumb, without a word to anyone.

  The writer goes on to describe how this “finest of halls” is filled with “fine speaking” (εὐφημία), echoing like a grotto and enhancing the speaker’s delivery, stretching out the last syllables of each phrase and lingering on the last words of each period to create a harmony between building and viewer that hints at the relationship of Echo and Narcissus. Lucian draws particular attention to the golden ceiling, the radiant “head” of the room and “decorated as much with gold as the sky is with the stars” (De domo 8), and he also describes the paintings with potential for evoking moralising themes. Yet this inspirational and acoustically convenient environment threatens to u
ndermine the speaker with its distracting allure (Thomas 2007, 231–235).

  The gilt decoration and concern with acoustics may suggest the grandeur of a public auditorium, and it has been suggested that this hall was part of a public gymnasium (Barresi 2007, 148). However, its spatial and decorative characteristics could equally have found place in a private house. The recently excavated houses on the terrace south of the main Kuretenstresse at Ephesus provide a good archaeological parallel. In House 1, for example, the heightening of Room B in the Antonine era (Period 3 of the house’s history) would have created a commodious space for recitations; the walls were painted with faux marbles and the flat wooden ceiling could have been gilt or painted gold (Lang-Auinger 1996, 197–199, figs. 71a–b).

  That Lucian’s description seems to refer to the highly embellished room of a private house, rather than a public building, emerges not so much from the ambiguous name later given to this work as from the writer’s comparison of experience of the space to Telemachus’ response to the house of Menelaus (De Domo 3):

  The response is not just a eulogy of the hall—it was perhaps appropriate for the young islander in this way to be bowled over by Menelaus’s house and to compare its gold and ivory to the beauties in heaven, as he had seen no other beautiful thing on earth—but actually speaking in it and assembling all the best men and making a display [epideixin] of words would itself be a part of the eulogy.

  The same Homeric passage (Od. 4.300) is cited by Plutarch, who commented on the self-indulgent materialism of contemporary private houses (De Cup. 9):

  Most of us make the mistake of Telemachus, who, through inexperience, or rather lack of good taste, when he saw Nestor’s house furnished with beds and tables, garments and carpets, and well stored with sweet and pleasant wine, did not look upon his host as so happy a man in being thus well provided with things necessary and useful; but when he saw the ivory, gold, and amber in Menelaus’s house, cried out in amazement: