The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  Thus, like the orators and novelists who preferred to expound on topics from Classical or Hellenistic history, Galen in some ways avoided engagement with Roman culture. He did not use his Roman name. Although he is interested in Latin words, he does not cite Latin authors. His Rome is, in the anecdotes to which it forms a shadowy background, indistinguishable from a Greek city. In its tense and awkward combination of aloofness and superiority with dependency and even servility, Galen’s attitude is typical of the cultural environment of the Greek Second Sophistic.

  FURTHER READING

  The catalog of Galen’s works published by Fichtner (2004) is fundamental to Galenic studies (and is the source of the abbreviations used in this chapter and for the number of attested works of Galen). The best general introduction to Galen’s ideas and influence is Temkin 1973; a handbook on Galen’s work is now available in Hankinson 2008. The collection of essays in Gill, Whitmarsh, and Wilkins 2009 is also an excellent introduction to many of the themes discussed in this chapter.

  Several scholarly biographies of Galen are now available: Boudon-Millot 2013; Mattern 2013; and Schlange-Schöningen 2003. Editions, with translations and commentary, of Galen’s autobiographical treatises On Prognosis, On My Own Books, and On the Order of My Own Books are available in Boudon-Millot 2007 and Nutton 1979; English translations of the last two treatises may be found in Singer 1997. This last, however, was published before the discovery of a second and more complete manuscript of On My Own Books, and it is important to use Boudon-Millot’s numbering of the chapters. Some autobiographical information (such as the profession of Galen’s grandfather) also comes from the newly discovered treatise Avoiding Distress, now available in Boudon-Millot and Jouanna 2010; an English translation is included in Singer 2013. Jones’s study of Galen’s travels (2012) adds many details not addressed in other biographies.

  On Pergamum and its history, see Halfmann 2004 (= 2001), Koester 1998, Radt 1999, and recently Evans 2012.

  For more detailed discussion of Galen’s values, identity, and portrayal of patients, including his views on peasants and women, see Mattern 2008a, especially chapters 2 and 4, and Mattern 2008b.

  On medicine, paideia, and the culture of the Second Sophistic, see Bowersock 1969, chap. 5; Ieraci Bio 1981; Mattern 2008a, chap. 1; Swain 1996, chap. 11; von Staden 1995 and 1997; and Boudon’s editions of Galen’s Art of Medicine and Exhortation to Study the Art of Medicine (2000). For social-historical studies of medical personnel and their position in Roman society, see Korpela 1987; Kudlien 1986; Nutton 2004, chap. 17.

  On Galen and philosophy, a huge body of work exists. The articles in Barnes and Jouanna 2003 and the chapters by R. J. Hankinson in Hankinson 2008 are a good introduction. A translation of Galen’s most important treatises on ethical themes, including the newly discovered Avoiding Distress, is now available in Singer 2013. That the Best Physician is also a Philosopher is available in an edition with French translation and commentary by Boudon-Millot 2007, and an English translation is included in Singer 1997. An edition and English translation of On the Opinions of Hippocrates and Plato is available in de Lacy 1980–1984.

  On Galen’s medical education, besides the biographies cited above, see also Grmek and Gourevitch 1994.

  On the medical sects, the best introductory discussion is von Staden 1982. Published collections of the fragments of the Methodists (Tecusan 2004) and Empiricists (Deichgräber 1965) are available.

  On language, see especially Manetti 2009; also Hankinson 1994; Morison 2008; Swain 1996, 56–62; and von Staden 1997a, 51–53. On Galen’s library of texts, much new material was obtained with the discovery of On Avoiding Distress; see Nutton 2009. On the fire of 192, Nutton 2009 and Mattern 2013, chap. 8. On Galen as author and editor, see Hanson 1998; Johnson 2010, chap. 5; and von Staden 1997b. On Galen’s use of Hellenistic medical writers and Hippocrates, von Staden 1997a, 50–53, 1997b, and 2009; also Smith 1979, chap. 2; and Lloyd 1993.

  On Galen’s anatomical demonstrations, see Debru 1996; Gleason 2009; Mattern 2013, chap. 5; and von Staden 1995. On Galen’s public presence and social relationships, Mattern 2008a, chap. 1. On the agonistic features of his case histories, ibid., chap. 3.

  On Galen, the Roman aristocracy, and Roman imperial power, see the classic essay of Bowersock 1969, and also Mattern 1999; Mattern 2013, chap 6; and Swain 1996, chap. 11. On Galen’s name and Roman citizenship, Alexandru 2011. On the Pergamene elite, see White 1998. An English translation, with extensive commentary, of On Prognosis is available in Nutton 1979.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Alexandru, S. 2011. “Newly Discovered Witnesses Asserting Galen’s Affiliation to the gens Claudia.” ASNP ser. 5, 3: 385–433, 600–611.

  Barnes, J., and J. Jouanna, eds. 2003. Galien et la philosophie. Geneva.

  Boudon, V. 2000. Galien. Vol. 2, Exhortation à l’étude de la médecine; Art medical. Paris.

  Boudon-Millot, V. 2007. Galien. Vol. 1, Introduction générale; Sur l’ordre de ses propres livres; Sur ses propres livres; Que l’excellent médecin est aussi philosophe. Paris.

  Boudon-Millot, V. 2013. Galien de Pergame: Médecin et philosophe. Paris.

  Boudon-Millot, V. 2016. Galien. vol. 6, Thériaque à Pison. Paris.

  Boudon-Millot, V., and J. Jouanna. 2010. Galien. Vol. 4, Ne pas se chagriner. Paris.

  Bowersock, G. W. 1969. Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire. Oxford.

  Debru, A. 1996. “Les demonstrations médicales à Rome au temps de Galien.” In Ancient Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context, edited by Ph. J. van der Eijk, H. F. J. Horstmanshoff, and P. H. Schrijvers, 1:69–81. Amsterdam.

  Deichgräber, K. 1965. Die griechische Empirikerschule: Sammlung der Fragmente und Darstellung der Lehre. Berlin.

  de Lacy, P., ed. and trans. 1978–1984, 2nd ed. 2005. Galen: On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato. Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.4.1.2. 3 vols. Berlin.

  Evans, R. 2012. A History of Pergamum: Beyond Hellenistic Kingship. London.

  Fichtner, G. 2004. Corpus Galenicum: Verzeichnis der galenischen und pseudogalenischen Schriften. Tübingen. http://cmg.bbaw.de/online-publications/Galen-Bibliographie_2016_12.pdf.

  Gill, C., T. Whitmarsh, and J. Wilkins, eds. 2009. Galen and the World of Knowledge. Cambridge.

  Gleason, M. W. 2009. “Shock and Awe: The Performance Dimension of Galen’s Anatomy Demonstrations.” In Galen and the World of Knowledge, edited by C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh, and J. Wilkins, 85–114. Cambridge.

  Grmek, M., and D. Gourevitch. 1994. “Aux sources de la doctrine médicale de Galien: L’enseignement de Marinus, Quintus, et Numisianus.” ANRW 2.37.2: 1491–1528.

  Halfmann, H. 2001. Städtebau und Bauherren im römischen Kleinasien: Ein Vergleich zwischen Pergamon und Ephesos. Beihefte der Istanbuler Mitteilungen 43. Tübingen.

  Halfmann, H. 2004. Éphèse et Pergame: Urbanisme et commanditaires en Asie mineure romaine. Translated by I. Voss. Bordeaux.

  Hankinson, R. J. 1991. Galen, On the Therapeutic Method: Books I and II. Oxford.

  Hankinson, R. J. 1994. “Usage and Abusage: Galen on Language.” In Language, edited by S. Everson, 166–187. Cambridge Companions to Ancient Thought 3. Cambridge.

  Hankinson, R. J., ed. 2008. The Cambridge Companion to Galen. Cambridge.

  Hanson, A. E. 1998. “Galen: Author and Critic.” In Editing Texts/Texte edieren, edited by G. W. Most, 22–53. Göttingen.

  Ieraci Bio, A. M. 1981. “Sulla concezione del medico pepaideuménos in Galeno e nel tardoantico.” In Galeno: Obra, pensamiento e influencia, edited by J. A. López Férez, 133–152. Madrid.

  Johnson, W. A. 2010. Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities. Oxford and New York.

  Johnston, I., and G. H. R. Horsley. 2011. Galen: Method of Medicine. 3 vols. Cambridge, MA.

  Jones, C. P. 2012. “Galen’s Travels.” Chiron 42: 399–419.

  Koester, H., ed. 1998. Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods. Harvard Theological Studies 46. Harrisburg, PA.<
br />
  Korpela, J. 1987. Das Medizinalpersonal im antiken Rom: Eine sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung. Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae, Dissertationes Humanarum Litterarum 45. Helsinki.

  Kudlien, F. 1986. Die Stellung des Arztes in der römischen Gesellschaft. Stuttgart.

  Leigh, R. 2015. On Theriac to Piso, Attributed to Galen: A Critical Edition with Translation and Commentary. Leiden.

  Lloyd, G. E. R. 1993. “Galen on Hellenistics and Hippocrates: Contemporary Battles and Past Authorities.” In Galen und das hellenistische Erbe, edited by J. Kollesch and D. Nickel, 125–144. Stuttgart.

  Manetti, D. 2009. “Galen and Hippocratic Medicine: Language and Practice.” In Galen and the World of Knowledge, edited by C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh, and J. Wilkins, 157–174. Cambridge.

  Mattern, S. P. 1999. “Physicians and the Roman Imperial Aristocracy: The Patronage of Therapeutics.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73: 1–18.

  Mattern, S. P. 2008a. Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing. Baltimore, MD.

  Mattern, S. P. 2008b. “Galen’s Ideal Patient.” In Asklepios: Studies on Ancient Medicine, edited by L. Cilliers, 116–130. Acta Classica Supplementum 2. Bloemfontain.

  Mattern, S. P. 2013. The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire. Oxford and New York.

  Morison, B. 2008. “Language.” In The Cambridge Companion to Galen, edited by R. J. Hankinson, 116–156. Cambridge.

  Nutton, V. 1979. Galen: On Prognosis. CMG 5.8.1. Berlin.

  Nutton, V. 1984. “Galen in the Eyes of His Contemporaries.” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 58: 315–324. Reprinted in FromiDemocedesito Harvey: Studies in the History of Medicine. London, 1988.

  Nutton, V. 1997. “Galen on Theriac: Problems of Authenticity.” In Galen on Pharmacology: Philosophy, History, and Medicine (Studies in Ancient Medicine 16), edited by A. Debru, 133–152. Leiden.

  Nutton, V. 2004. Ancient Medicine. London.

  Nutton, V. 2009. “Galen’s Library.” In Galen and the World of Knowledge, edited by C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh, and J. Wilkins, 19–34. Cambridge.

  Radt, W. 1999. Pergamon: Geschichte und Bauten einer antiken Metropole. Darmstadt.

  Richardson, L. 1992. A New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome. Baltimore, MD.

  Schlange-Schöningen, H. 2003. Die römische Gesellschaft bei Galen: Biographie und Sozialgeschichte. Untersuchungen zur antiken Literatur und Geschichte 65. Berlin.

  Schöne, H. 1917. “τὸ τοῦ Τραιανοῦ γυμνάσιον bei Galenos.” Hermes 52: 105–111.

  Singer, P. N., ed. 1997. Galen: Selected Works. Oxford.

  Singer, P. N., ed. 2013. Galen: Psychological Writings. New York.

  Smith, W. D. 1979. The Hippocratic Tradition. Ithaca, NY.

  Strohmeier, G. 2007. “La longévité de Galien et les deux places de son tombeau.” In La science médicale antique: Nouveaux regards, edited by V. Boudon-Millot, A. Guardasole, and C. Magdelaine, 393–403. Paris.

  Swain, S. 1996. Hellenism and Empire: Language, Classicism, and Power in the Greek World,AD50–150. Oxford.

  Tecusan, M. 2004. The Fragments of the Methodists. Leiden.

  Temkin, O. 1973. Galenism: The Rise and Decline of a Medical Philosophy. Ithaca, NY.

  von Staden, H. 1982. “Haeresis and Heresy: The Case of the haireseis iatrikai.” In Jewish and Christian Self-Definition. Vol. 3, Self-Definition in the Greek and Roman World, edited by B. F. Meyer and E. P. Sanders, 76–100, 199–206. London.

  von Staden, H. 1995. “Anatomy as Rhetoric: Galen on Dissection and Persuasion.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50: 47–66.

  von Staden, H. 1997a. “Galen and the ‘Second Sophistic.’” In Aristotle and After, edited by R. Sorabji, 33–54. BICS Supplement 68. London.

  von Staden, H. 1997b. “Gattung und Gedächtnis: Galen über Wahrheit und Lehrdichtung.” In Gattungen wissenschaftlicher Literatur in der Antike, edited by W. Kullmann, J. Althoff, and M. Asper, 65–96. Tübingen.

  von Staden, H. 2009. “Staging the Past, Staging Oneself: Galen on Hellenistic Exegetical Traditions.” In Galen and the World of Knowledge, edited by C. Gill, T. Whitmarsh, and J. Wilkins, 132–156. Cambridge.

  White, L. M. 1998. “Counting the Costs of Nobility: The Social Economy of Roman Pergamon.” In Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods, edited by H. Koester, 331–365. Harvard Theological Studies 46. Harrisburg, PA.

  CHAPTER 25

  CHARITON AND XENOPHON OF EPHESUS

  J. R. MORGAN

  SCHOLARS used to be in the habit of dividing the five extant Greek novels into two groups. One the one hand, the novels of Longus, Achilles Tatius, and Heliodorus were perceived as texts of literary stature and ambition; on the other, those of Chariton of Aphrodisias (Callirhoe) and Xenophon of Ephesus (Ephesiaka or Ephesian Story) were regarded as simpler and more primitive love stories, aimed at a less intellectually endowed public.1 This was more than a simple judgement of literary quality: the labels “sophistic” and “presophistic” inscribed both a perceived connection, or lack of one, with the agendas of the Second Sophistic, including literary skill, and an assumption that literary sophistication develops chronologically and can be used as a tool in dating these notoriously free-floating narratives. More recent work has insisted both on the continuity of the genre and on the individuality of each of the novelists, complicating and multiplying the possible groupings within the set. It does neither Chariton nor Xenophon justice to think of them as barely competent near-identical twins, or to imagine that they were somehow immune from the intellectual, social and political currents that shaped the work of the other novelists. Chariton is a writer of palpable intelligence and skill, acutely sensitive to some of the big issues driving the Second Sophistic. Xenophon is a more problematic case, but the problems his novel raises are nonetheless of extraordinary interest. The primary concern of this chapter will not be with the literary quality and techniques of the two novels, but with their engagement with their cultural and political environment, and how that environment informs them, particularly in their concern, manifested in different ways, with Greek elite identity.

  Dating is a crucial issue. A clear terminus ante quem for Chariton is provided by a papyrus fragment from the mid-second century.2 The case for a first-century date has recently been argued forcefully by Tilg 2010, but the evidence, including an alleged absence of Atticism3 and a supposed reference to Chariton’s heroine Callirhoe in the first satire of Persius,4 is far from conclusive. On the other hand, there are strong grounds for connecting the novel’s third main character, a dignitary of Miletus named Dionysius, with the important sophist Dionysius of Miletus, active in the reign of Hadrian, and the subject of one of Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists;5 he is also mentioned by Cassius Dio, and attested epigraphically. Chariton’s Dionysius is introduced as a man of exceptional paideia (Callirhoe 1.12.6) and described as pepaideumenos on several occasions; he is thus centrally characterized by one of the key terms of sophistic culture. Philostratus (VS 524) tells us that the historical Dionysius was appointed “satrap” by Hadrian; his use of this word is partly due to squeamishness about using Latin official terms, but it echoes the status in the novel of Dionysius, who is a friend of the Persian king and serves as his general. At the very least, it implies a parallel between the Persian and Roman empires which Chariton also appears to be playing on. When the action reaches Babylon, Dionysius accuses a rival of trying to steal his wife and makes a speech characterized by its restraint and simplicity;6 this corresponds to Philostratus’s judgments on the rhetoric of the historical Dionysius. Philostratus also mentions a work he refers to as “Araspas the lover of Panthea,” which must be a declamation spoken in the persona of a character in Xenophon’s Cyropedia. Although Philostratus denies Dionysius’s authorship of this work and says it was attributed to him maliciously, the attribution, particularly if false, suggests a publicly perceived connection between him and oriental erotic narratives. Whether the character of Dionysius in Chariton�
�s novel reflects that perception or gave rise to it is impossible to tell. The argument of Bowie 2002 that Chariton could only have invented his fictional Dionysius before the lifetime of his historical namesake, and that Dionysius the sophist therefore constitutes a terminus ante quem for the composition of the novel, rests on the unnecessary assumption that it would have been offensive to depict an important public figure as a man in love. However, Philostratus contests the attribution of the oration to Dionysius purely because of its deficient technique, with no hint that its erotic subject matter was problematic to sophist or public. Chariton’s portrait, in fact, is a sympathetic one of an honorable man who emerges with credit and with his reputation intact. The letter which Callirhoe addresses to Dionysius at the end of the novel (Callirhoe 8.4.5), addressing him as her “benefactor” (euergetês) and urging him to remember (mnêmoneue) his Callirhoe, looks very like a dedication of the novel, which shares its heroine’s name, to the author’s patron.

  Philostratus seems to allude to this fictional letter in one of his own fictional letters, addressed to a Chariton who is clearly an author: