The Oxford Handbook of the Second Sophistic

by Daniel S. Richter

  3.Sharples in Sharples and Sorabji 2007, 2:503–504; Falcon 2012. In the Appendix I list the names Sharples identifies—some names added from Schorn 2003 and by myself.

  4.Sharples 1987, 1179.

  5.E.g., Simpl. in Phys. 707.33, 1170.13. Whether this was an honorific title (a view accepted by many) or not (Barnes, Bozien, Flannery, and Ierodiakonou 1991), it clearly was a shorthand which was well understood and thus singles him out from other commentators.

  6.This broad characterization should not be generalized without qualification. For some helpful cautionary notes, see Gottschalk 1987, Sharples 2010b.

  7.The best known Peripatetic compendium is the De mundo, a cosmological work, which became listed among Aristotle’s works, but is now generally considered spurious.

  8.Gottschalk 1987, 1122–1125. An edition of the first five books is in Drossaart Lulofs 1969.

  9.Bowie 1982, 41–42.

  10.Ammonius, On Aristotle’s De interpr. 5.28–29. But this tradition is regarded as suspect, because it clashes with another comment in the same source (Ammonius, In APr. 31.12–13) and the exact count of scholarchs is difficult to align with our evidence, since there is a gap between no. 4 (Lyco, ca. 274–225 BCE) and no. 8 (Critolaus, ca. 155 BCE, a date established by counting back from Andronicus) before Diodorus (?) and Andronicus. See Baltussen 2013.

  11.Falcon, SEP 2009, referring to Porphyry’s comment in his Life of Plotinus 24. For a skeptical look at the question to what extent it was an edition, see Barnes 1997.

  12.A useful case study of Alexandrian scholarship is Niehoff 2011. See also Reynolds and Wilson 1991, 5–31 and Dickey 2007, 43–51.

  13.Moraux 1973, 65n22 disagrees with Düring Biographical Tradition 416 that Ammonius’s text presents the criteria which Andronicus used to discuss problems of authenticity.

  14.This method of discussing features of the text to establish authorship would certainly be a part of the later commentary tradition; see Mansfeld 1994.

  15.Its development from occasional and sporadic comments to running commentary has not yet been fully charted, but see Baltussen 2007 for a first attempt to capture the evolution of exegesis.

  16.For a fuller treatment of terminology related to exegesis, ranging from marginal annotation (paratithesthai) to clarifying notes (scholia) and commentaries (hypomnêmata) see Baltussen 2007 and Mansfeld 1994.

  17.Michael Trapp has argued persuasively that the difference between Platonist and Aristotelian views in ethics became harder to determine, because the ongoing debates caused their views to converge: Trapp 2007, 76.

  18.See Van der Eijk 2009, 261–262 for a succinct summary of Galen’s criticisms of Aristotle, and 262ff. for the overlaps between the two, some of which are discussed below (section 37.3, “An Aristotelianizing Author in the Second Sophistic”). On Xenarchus, see Falcon 2012.

  19.See Appendix for details.

  20.Barnes (1999, 10) notes that Aspasius is mentioned some twenty-eight times in Simplicius’s commentaries. See Barnes 1999, 1 for the question whether he was the teacher of Galen (an morb. 6.41–42 K).

  21.My guide is Barnes 1999 here, though in one case it is possible to supplement his judgment, because he did not yet have the newly found edition of Galen’s On My Own Books available (Boudon-Millot 2007a). His comment (Barnes 1999, 8) that “the text of Galen’s work . . . is in a desperate state” need no longer trouble us. Boudon has confirmed the reading for the phrase “exegetical work such as those of Adrastus or of Aspasius.”

  22.Barnes 1999, 5–8. A good general account of Galen now in Mattern 2013.

  23.Ierodiakonou 1999, 147–148. The question of the unity of virtues is already found in Plato’s Protagoras.

  24.Konstan 2001, 5.

  25.On its economic prosperity, see Hebert 2009.

  26.in Harmon. Ptol. p. 270, cf. Barker 1984, 210.

  27.Fortenbaugh 2011, 237 with n. 11 and 749 (five books on History and Style in the On Dispositions of Theophrastus, see fr. 437 FHSG).

  28.Aristotle: Galen περὶ ἐθῶν, Scr. Min. 2, 11.4–5 Müller. Herminus and Sosigenes: Simplicius in Cael. 430.32–33. See Sharples 1987, 1178.

  29.Dedication: De fato 1.164.1–3 (= Sharples 2010a, chap. 1, text Ab).

  30.Inscription found in Karacasu and dated to ca. 200 CE: see Chaniotis 2004, 388–389 and Sharples 2005.

  31.What follows relies heavily on Baltussen 2008, chap. 4.2, Moraux 1984, and Sharples 1987.

  32.Baltussen 2008, 114.

  33.On his influence see note 53 below. On the lack of a secure chronology of his works see Sharples 1987, 1181.

  34.See Sharples 2010a, 140 for literature. A full list of known works (incl. spurious and lost ones) in Sharples 1987, 1182–1199. His lost commentary on De caelo is quoted in Simpl. in Cael. 297 ff.

  35.Mansfeld 1994, 2; Whitmarsh 2005, 1. On expansive commentary justified by the claim of unclearness, see Whitmarsh 2005, 8.

  36.This section draws heavily on Sharples 1987, 1199ff.

  37.Sharples 2010a, 246.

  38.Sharples 1987, 1206–1209.

  39.Sharples 1987, 1178, 1180 (i.e., his interest is “not primarily a historical one”).

  40.Translation by Sharples 2010a, 213 (= text 23H).

  41.Sharples 2010a, 230.

  42.E.g., Thales on the magnet, ap. Arist. De an. 405a19, 411a7; the Pythagoreans ap. Arist. De an. 404a20–21; Pl. Phdr. 245c–e. Cf. Sharples 1987, 1202–1204, 1215.

  43.For his influence on Simplicius, see Baltussen 2008, chap. 4.

  44.Hankinson 1992, 3508; cf. Van der Eijk 2009, 271n42.

  45.See Galen, On the Futility of Grieving 58–59 (Boudon-Millot 2007b, 117).

  46.To which he turned after his father claimed to have had a dream: see Nutton 1973.

  47.De optimo medico 69.15–23. On this passage see also Mansfeld 1994, 168.

  48.For a fuller account we have to turn to a propaedeutic work, entitled To Patrophilus on the Constitution of the Medical Art 6.1.244–245 K. See also Swain 1996, 57ff. (cf. 366–367); Mansfeld 1994, 167.

  49.It is mentioned briefly in Van der Eijk’s fragment edition of Diocles of Carystus (Van der Eijk 2001: fr. 6, 1:9 [text] and 2:11–12 [commentary]).

  50.On the importance of medicine for him as a model of method, see Jaeger 1957, 59–60.

  51.A useful discussion of the label “Peripatetic” in Schorn 2003. On criticism and allegiance, see Falcon 2012, 2–6 (Xenarchus).

  52.See above note 30.

  53.Platonists: Plotinus (ca. 204/5–270 CE), Porphyry (ca. 234–305 CE), Simplicius (480–560 CE); Arabic thinkers: Averroes/Ibn Rush (1126–1198 CE); Christian thinkers: Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 CE).

  CHAPTER 38

  1.Price 1984, 101–132 on city rivalry connected to festivals of the Imperial cult; Mitchell 1990, 190 with the second-century examples of a festival-competition within the Lycian cities Oinoanda and Balboura.

  2.E.g., Pl. Hp. mi. 363c; Philostr. VS 493, 496, 505 for the fifth and fourth centuries BCE; 607, 617 for the second century CE. Dio Chrys. Or. 12 is still extant.

  3.See Pirenne-Delforge 2008 on the function of narrative on the past, on the praxis of sacrifices, on mystery cults, etc.; Frateantonio 2009 on the political context of his attitude toward religion, the hierarchy of cults; Juul 2010 with a focus on oracular “tales”; and Porter 2001, who focuses on the selectivity of both, Pausanias and Longinus, and their “time travel through culture(s)” (63) contrasting “ideals and ruins.”

  4.For an opposing view, see the arguments of Whitmarsh 2009. For parallels between Jewish, Christian, and Second Sophistic authors, see Anderson 1993, 203–215, and Goeken 2012, 318–334 (on Aelius Aristides). On the intellectual habitus of Christian authors, see, e.g., Eshleman 2012, 102–114, 199–202.

  5.According to Dio Cassius (Xiphilinus) 72.31.1, the senate introduced this new ritual in honour of Marcus Aurelius and Faustina the Younger for the city of Rome; the decretum decurionum from Ostia refers to Antoninus Pius and diva Faustina (t
he Elder), CIL 14.5326.

  6.Cf. Dio Chr. Or. 28–41 (On Concord in civic life), cf. Jones 1978, 83–94.

  7.Cf. Vout 2007, 108–121, and the list of written sources in Kuhlmann 2002, 197–239.

  8.Boatwright 2000, 110–112, 127–143; cf. Mitchell 1987.

  9.Schol. Lucian Icarom. 24 and more; cf. Winter 1996, 90.

  10.McCabe, Teos 76; cf. Boatwright 2000, 130–131.

  11.IvPergamon 2.364, 367–374 with C. Habicht’s introduction to IvPergamon vol. 3, p. 10.

  12.Less trustworthy are the imperial temple-building reports for Syrian Antioch by the sixth-century author Malalas, cf. Horster 1997, 81–92.

  13.For Hadrian’s engagement for the tombs of Hector and Aias in Ilium, of Epaminondas in Mantineia, of Alcibiades in Melissa, Archilochus in Paros and Pompeius in Egypt, see Boatwright 2000, 140–142.

  14.Philostr. V A 4.15, cf. Gyselinck and Demoen 2006, 116; Her.: thus Rutherford 2009, but see Whitmarsh 2009.

  15.Neokoros: since the mid-first century CE, the title designated a city in one of the eastern provinces that had a provincial temple of the imperial cult; see, e.g., Burrell 2004, 17–269, with a list of cities with one and more neokoroi-titles.

  16.Decisions by Octavian/Augustus (in Rome): Suet. Aug. 93; cf. Dio Cass. 51.4.1; by Marcus (in Pannonia): SEG 29.127, cf. Oliver 1989, 366–388, no. 184.

  17.IGRom. 4.1431, see the commentary of G. Petzl at I. Smyrna 697, cf. also Philostr. VS 530.

  18.BMC Ionia, 278, no. 339–341; cf. Puech 2002, 399 with note 2.

  19.See Bowersock 1969; Bowie 1982; Hahn 1989, 33–53; Schmitz 1997, 39–63. Puech 2002, 23–35 gives a short overview of the current discussion. Three or perhaps five “sophists” had been members of the Roman senate, and others had been equestrian procurators or secretaries in the imperial service. Attested are the following sophists as high priests: Aurelius Annianus (IGR 4.1226, third century), Aurelius Septimius Apollonius (SEG 17.200, third century), Aurelius Athenaios of Thyateira (IGR 4.1233–1234, second century), probably also his namesake of Ephesus (I. Ephesos 3057, second century), Ti. Claudius Frontonianus (of Melos, IG XII 3.1119, second century), L. Flavius Hermokrates (IvPergamon 3.34, early third century); Pomponius Cornelius Lollianus Hedianus (IGR 4.1424, third cent.), the father and homonymous son T. Flavii Menandri (I. Ephesos 3062, second century), Ti. Claudius Pardalas of Aizanoi (MAMA 9.18–19), probably a valued friend of Aelius Aristides (cf. S. Mitchell at MAMA). Only few rhetors are attested as high priests of eastern provinces other than Asia, e.g., T. Cominius Claudianus Hermaphilos, pontiarch in Moesia Superior (IGR I 632–633, second to third centuries), and L. Iulius Vestinus, high priest of Egypt and Alexandria and director (epistates) of the Museum (IGR 1.136).

  20.G. E. Bean and T. B. Mitford, Journeys in Rough Cilicia 1965, 34n36

  21.Eshleman 2012, 125–148 on the “construction” of the Second Sophistic in Philostratus’s Lives of the Sophists through the narratives of “self-presentation and negotiation for status” (125).

  22.Augustus and the early empire: e.g., the renewal of the once neglected sacrifices for Zeus Soter in Milesian Didyma, I. Didyma 199 lines 6–7 and the renewal of the festival of Zeus Labraundos at Mylasa, I. Labraunda 54a. lines 5–6. See Chaniotis 2003 with examples of neglected cult traditions and the revival of rituals in the second century AD.

  23.IG II² 2090, Philostr. VS 550, cf. Tobin 1997, 200–209, and Strauss 1993, 120.

  24.E.g., the hymn cited as a delicacy for the listener in Hel. 3.2.4; cf. Galli 2001, 47–48, with references.

  25.Criticism concerned: gladiatorial shows as part of a festival, Dio Chr. Or. 31.121; Philostr. V A 4.22 and comedies; Ael. Arist. Or. 29.4; those who lack the power of persuasion and use gifts of money, banquets, or gladiatorial shows to please the common people, Plut. Mor. 802 D; cf. as well Mor. 821 D, 477 D, and a more general critic of the pursuits of glory, Dio Chr. Or. 66, and popularity, Dio Chr. Or. 66.8, 11 via spending on festivals, as well as Lucian Anach. 39 and Demonax 46, where the protagonists ridicule the famous Lacedaimonian cult rituals.

  26.E.g., the changing monotheistic attitudes of Aelius Aristides (Sarapis, Asclepius both assimilated to Zeus); cf. Anderson 1993, 200–215; Chaniotis 2010. See also above and Oudot, chapter 17 in this volume.

  27.See especially section VI, chapters 33–37, and VII, chapters 40–43.

  28.Telling are the topics in Van der Stockt, Titchener, Ingenkamp, and Jiménez 2010: single myths, dreams, demonology, wandering souls, solar eclipses, etc. But see Van Nuffelen 2011, 48–71, and the structured and in-depth discussion by Brenk 1987. On p. 255 he lists Plutarch’s works on fate (tyche), those with a “general interest in religious topics,” and those with “strong eschatological overtones.”

  29.Digressions in the Moralia: the E at Delphi is presented as a learned discussion during a literary promenade in the sanctuary, the Oracles at Delphi tells stories of important persons who had asked for an oracle, the Obsolescence of oracles discusses inter alia the function of demigods (daimones). Short passages concerning aspects of the working of the cult and the duty of the priests are also integrated into other parts of Plutarch’s work, e.g., Mor. 437a–b which concerns the preliminary sacrifice by the priests, and Mor. 437d and 428a–b, about potential influences on the Pythia and her reaction.

  30.Famous is Dio’s Olympic speech (Or. 12), in which Phidias’s statue of Zeus and the idea of the gods are at the core of the oration, with a philosophical and artistic treatment of theology in the context of a fictive judicial process contra Phidias. Dio’s Borysthenes speech (Or. 36) was later used by some of the church fathers because its subject could be interpreted in a nonpagan cosmological-theological manner, cf. Nesselrath, Bäbler, Forschner, and De Jong 2003.

  31.Cf., e.g., Ael. Arist. Panathenaic speech (Or. 1), in which the gods protect and mark out Athens (1.40–48, 399–401). On oratory see Pernot, chapter 13 in this volume.

  32.Cf. Jones 1978, 56–64, about the moral aspects in his Euboian and Olbian speeches, Dio Chr. Or. 7 and 36; Piérart 1998.

  33.Cf. Behr 1968, 148–161; Goeken 2012, 253–303.

  34.On Apollonius of Tyana, see Miles, chapter 18 in this volume.

  35.The earliest such treatise in the period of the Second Sophistic seems to be Plutarch’s On Superstition, in which he follows Plato and others in his critique and censures superstition as being as dangerous as atheism; Brenk 1987, 260–262.

  36.See Billault 2012 on cult and rituals in Achilles Tatius; Morgan 2003, 446–454 on religion and morality and sexual codes in Heliodorus; Whitmarsh 2012 on eroticism and religion in the Jewish ancient novel of Joseph and Aseneth, with many parallels to the “Greek” novel of the imperial period.

  37.No esoteric meaning is encoded in the texts of the second century, as Merkelbach 1988 has claimed. Cf. Beck 2003, 131–132; Zeitlin 2008, 95, though the idea still offers a stimulating suggestion for discussion of Apuleius’s Metamorphoses.

  38.The deity Melikertes-Palaimon and some rituals of the cult are present in Philostr. Imag. 2.16; Her. 52.3–54.4; Ael. Arist. Hymn to Poseidon (Or. 46.40–41), and other epigraphic and literary texts, as well as on coins; cf. Piérart 1998 with the evidence; Galli 2001, 61–62 discusses the evidence at the sanctuary of Poseidon at Isthmia. For the philosophical interpretation of mystery cults in the imperial period, see Van Nuffelen 2011, 27–47.

  39.On these ethics of conjugality, see with further references Anderson 1993, 200–215; Zeitlin 2008, 98–99.

  40.For the Heroicus, see Pache 2004; Rutherford 2009; for Lucian’s Peregrinus, see Jones 1986, 129. On epiphany in general, see Platt 2011, who includes art as well but has a focus on texts from the archaic to the late antique period.

  41.Bowersock’s 1973, 182 devotion to “occultism” among the Antonine elites goes too far.

  42.See above on Plutarch and Pausanias. For the role of paideia in the Roman empire, see Bowersock 1969; Swain 1996, 17–42 on language consciousness and its power to create a specific Greek
identity within the Roman Empire; Schmitz 1997 on paideia as social capital which allowed the literati and the educated rich to negotiate and compete about status within the hierarchies of the local, regional and imperial elites; Whitmarsh 2001, 96–108 on paideia and social status.

  43.Cf. Mitchell 1993, 191–195; Petzl 1998, but see also Van Nuffelen’s 2011, 12–13 warning to mix different conventions and social settings (inscriptions—philosophical treatises) by making too wide conclusions of the confession inscriptions.

  44.For the discussion of the last twenty years of changes in religious mentality, see Van Nuffelen 2011, 11–14.

  CHAPTER 39

  1.As Aelius Aristides put it in On Rome (Or. 26.100–101): “Now indeed it is possible for Hellene or non-Hellene, with or without his property, to travel wherever he will, easily, just as if passing from fatherland to fatherland” (trans. Oliver 1953, 906).

  2.Against: Price 2012, 8n36; for: Elsner 1992, Petsalis-Diomidis 2010.

  3.For Lucian’s portrait of Alexander, see Bendlin 2011, Petsalis-Diomidis 2010, 42–66.

  4.For Lucian’s criticism of pilgrimage, see also Dialogues of the Dead (10), where Menippus mocks the hero Trophonios for the procedure at the latter’s sanctuary in Lebadeia.

  5.= Edelstein and Edelstein 1945, T432.

  6.Petsalis-Diomidis 2010,167–220.

  7.See Downie 2013, Petsalis-Diomides 2010, 122–150.

  8.See Euseb. Vit. Const. 3.56 = Edelstein and Edelstein 1945, T817.

  9.See the useful map of sanctuaries of Asclepius in Anatolia in Belayche 1987, 150.

  10.König 2005, 29–30; Isthmos: Aelius Aristides, Isthmian Oration (Or. 46.23, 31); Olympia: see Ebert 1997.

  11.See further MacKay 1990, 2052.

  12.See Elsner 1997b; Künzl and Koeppel 2002, 68–71; Thiersch 1937. For the wide dissemination of the cult of Ephesian Artemis, see Pausanias: 4.31.7; I. Ephesos 24B.8–14.

  13.See Rutherford 2013, 272–273.

  14.Spawforth 2012, 130–138, 245.