scholarly journals Greek paideia under the Roman empire: a critical view of the ‘Second Sophistic’ theory

2015 ◽  
Vol null (40) ◽  
pp. 103-137
Author(s):  
Kyunghyun Kim
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Critical View

Pilgrimage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ian C. Rutherford
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Early Christian ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
Roman Egypt ◽  
Greek Novel

This chapter looks at pilgrimage and sacred travel in the Second Sophistic. The principal topics covered are: the survival of traditional Greek forms of pilgrimage (e.g., involving healing, oracles, and initiation); pilgrimage and the festival culture of the Roman Empire, the sacred tourism practiced by members of the intellectual elite to places of religious and cultural significance; visits made by Roman emperors to sacred destinations; pilgrimage and sacred tourism to and within Roman Egypt; and pilgrimage destinations in the East, including Jewish and early Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. It takes account of both literary accounts (Pausanias, Lucian, the Greek novel, Philostratus) and epigraphic sources.

No Patriotic Fervor for Pella: Aelius Aristides and the Presentation of the Macedonians in the Second Sophistic

Mnemosyne ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sulochana Ruth Asirvatham
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Philip Ii ◽  
Greco Roman ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The World

AbstractThis paper examines four speeches by Aelius Aristides that contrast the image of Macedonian history negatively with Greek past and Roman present. Aristides' literary milieu of the 'Second Sophistic' is characterized by Greek self-consciousness and nostalgia in the Roman Empire. While writers like Plutarch and Arrian mythologize the figure of Alexander as a second Achilles and a philosopher-of-war as a means of offering subtle proof of 'Hellenic' primacy over the Romans, Aristides chooses to focus on the more negative aspects of the Macedonian legacy. To the Thebans I and II elaborately update the 'barbaric' image of Philip II found in Demosthenes, making him parallel not only, perhaps, to the Persian enemy of old but also to Rome's contemporary Parthian enemy. The Panathenaic Oration and To Rome, on the other hand, idealize the world of the present, where Athens reigns supreme in culture, Rome in conquest. Aristides' stance suggests that, despite the attractions of the 'Hellenic' Alexander, pride in Greece does not necessarily have to include Macedonian history. What is more important is that writers have some means of Hellenizing Rome, whether by idealizing a 'Greco-Roman' Alexander, or by seeing Rome as the ultimate polis.

V. The Second Sophistic and Imperial Greek Literature

2005 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 74-89
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Roman Greece ◽  
Fourth Century Bce

This book has focused so far upon the extraordinary popularity of epideictic oratory in the first three centuries of the Roman empire, the ‘Second Sophistic’ in Philostratus’ sense (notwithstanding its distant roots in the fourth century BCE). We have seen that these declamations were performance pieces, and that issues of identity were explored through the observation of the sophist’s body; that language and style were heavily theorized, but also highly experimental; and that the interpretation of these ingenious, mobile texts demands considerable resourcefulness and attentiveness. What I want to explore in this final chapter is the points of intersection between these aspects of sophistic literature and the wider literary culture of Roman Greece. I shall focus particularly on two areas, which are central to both oratorical declamation and wider literary culture: ‘the self and exotic narrative.

Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Dench
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Multiple Identities ◽  
First Century ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Place Of Residence ◽  
Common Descent ◽  
The Past ◽  
Early Twenty ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Literary Phenomenon

This chapter argues that certain traits associated with the Second Sophistic have attracted a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention in recent years: preoccupation with the past, Greekness, and the quirky performance of multiple identities. It emphasizes that these traits coexist with articulations of being and belonging that appeal less to early twenty-first-century sentiment, such as common descent, heredity, and “purity.” Finally, it focuses on the Second Sophistic not as a broad cultural or literary phenomenon reaching far beyond the individuals named by Philostratus, but as a group constructed by Philostratus, a variation on the proliferating contemporary groups in the Roman Empire that appealed to traditional modes of articulating being and belonging despite not being based primarily on fatherland, family descent, or place of residence.

scholarly journals Arrian’s Ektaxis in the Roman Empire

Mnemosyne ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Daniel Chiritoiu
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Roman Army ◽  
Military Manual

Abstract This paper proposes to discuss one of Arrian’s so-called ‘minor texts’—the Acies contra Alanos which I prefer to call Ektaxis kata Alanōn—and show how it is not only a military manual, but also allows Arrian to discuss identity, fitting into broader patterns and discourses of the Second Sophistic. In the Ektaxis Arrian, much like a sophist, creates different personas and layers of identity not just for himself but also for his troops, and takes the opportunity to present the Roman army in a diverse way, which differs from portrayals in other authors.

Heracles and the Monkey

Mnemosyne ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-144
Author(s):  
Alberto Camerotto
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Lucian Of Samosata

Abstract In the pamphlet On Salaried Posts in Great Houses Lucian of Samosata analyzes the problem of the impossible relationship between misthos, ‘money’, and paideia, ‘culture’ and ‘teaching’. Money is an indispensable asset for the necessities of life. But starting with Socrates and the Sophists it becomes problematic. In Lucian’s satire the attack is directed at philosophers and the marketing of culture in the Roman Empire at the time of the Second Sophistic.

Poets and Poetry

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Baumbach
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Essential Element ◽  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
Greek Poetry ◽  
The Core ◽  
Imperial Court ◽  
Literary Canons

This chapter gives an overview of the production and reception of Greek poetry in the Second Sophistic. It addresses questions of its performance and “setting in life,” looks at the generic tradition and creative innovation of epic, drama, melic poetry, epigram, and fable, and takes into account different cultural backgrounds and literary functions. Poetry was at the core of Greek paideia, functioned as a code for the educated elite, was regarded as an essential element of rhetoric, helped to shape Greek identity, and could be used for propaganda by poets belonging to the imperial court. Educated Greeks from all parts of the Roman Empire shared more or less the same knowledge of the Greek literary tradition regardless of their different cultural backgrounds, a function of the uniform Greek educational system based upon literary canons of established genres.

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