Heracles and the Monkey

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.

Antonine sophistication (c. AD 135–65)

This chapter describes how and why Antonine London came to be characterized by an architecture of domestic luxury. This was evidenced by large private houses laid out around several wings with porticoes, dining rooms, and heated private baths, and decorated with mosaic pavements and painted walls sometimes referencing Bacchic iconography. These designs materialized an educated paideia that drew on Hellenistic ideas, perhaps under the influence of the philosophies of the Second Sophistic. These ideas may have first found architectural expression in London in the Hadrianic period, but were more characteristic of the Antonine city. London’s wealth sustained a local demand for imported goods, whilst the waterfronts where these were landed were also busy at times of military campaigns. Several Romano-Celtic temples were built c. AD 165, including one dedicated to Mars Camulus. Imposing mausolea were built within walled cemeteries along the main road into town. These temples and tombs formed a monumental landscape adapted to the religious and funerary processions through the city.

A Sub-Christian Epistle? Appreciating 2 Peter as an Anti-Sophistic Polemic

Drawing from recent ancient historical, New Testament and Second-Sophistic scholarship, this article proposes that the enigmatic 2 Peter can be better understood with closer reference to anti-sophistic polemical writings. Increasing light has been shed on the sophists’ interest in wisdom, display and rhetoric in contexts such as Athens, Rome, Corinth and cities of Asia Minor in the first centuries CE. After introducing historical attempts to identify a worldview compatible with 2 Peter’s polemical response, this article (1) describes the nature of the Second Sophistic in the first century with reference to two contemporary anti-sophistic polemicists, Epictetus the Stoic and Philo the Jew, (2) highlights features of 2 Peter which resonate with contemporaneous anti-sophistic writings, beginning with 2 Pet. 1.16-21 and (3) observes the way in which the Ante-Nicene Fathers, when seeking to discredit later sophistic opposition, drew heavily from 2 Pet. 2–3. It may outrun the evidence to conclude that 2 Peter’s opponents were professional σοϕισταί‎ per se. It can be affirmed, however, that 2 Peter bears significant resemblance with first- and second-century anti-sophistic polemic and may be best understood with reference to it.

Invoking Humans in Roman-Era Oaths: Emotional Relations and Divine Ambiguity

This article examines Roman-era oaths invoking nondeities, especially persons. It argues that rather than invoking quasi-deities or persons to be punished by the gods in case of perjury, as usually understood in the past, these invocations could have two concurrent functions: honoring the invoked persons and affirming a statement. Though such invocations had limited legal power, they were commonly practiced throughout the period, as demonstrated in various textual genres, including Latin poetry and rhetoric, texts of the Second Sophistic, Jewish rabbinical writings, and 5th-century Christian sermons. Furthermore, nondivine invocations were frequently combined and mingled with divine invocations, with only theologically inclined authors attempting to define them clearly as a separate category. This interpretation has significance for understanding some equivocal oaths, such as the oath by the emperor, as well as for our perception of oaths in general as a speech act with functions going beyond the affirmation of a statement.

Introduction

This Introduction contextualizes the question of imperial Greek engagement with Latin literature within scholarship on the period often labelled as the ‘Second Sophistic’. It establishes the multiple parameters of ‘Greek biculturality’ in order to soften the traditional dogma according to which Greeks would not read Latin (and certainly not Latin poetry) (Section 0.1). It addresses questions of Greek–Roman bilingualism (0.2), the evidence of Latin papyri (especially Vergil) in the context of education (0.3), and gathers together the scattered literary evidence for Greek awareness of Latin poetry (0.4). It then focuses on two contexts, the festival circuit and libraries, in which Greeks may have engaged with Latin poetry (0.5); the archaeology and epigraphy of cities such as Ephesus and Aphrodisias (cities also associated with the novelists) are called upon in establishing this picture. The following section (0.6) sets up the methodology governing allusion and intertextuality, phenomena that are integral to the argument of the book. The final section (0.7) sounds a note of caution about any attempt to draw homogenizing conclusions about ‘Greeks of the imperial period’, a group of great chronological and geographical diversity.

Tertullian on the Afterlife: “Only Martyrs are in Heaven” and Other Misunderstandings

Perpetua only saw martyrs in heaven, according to Tertullian, De anima 55,4. This passage has perplexed scholars, since Tertullian seems to be referring to Saturus’s vision, not Perpetua’s (Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis 13,8). Additionally, Tertullian’s citation is part of his larger argument against the Valentinians, in which he makes the peculiar claim that the souls of the dead are “below” (inferi) with the exception of the martyrs who are in Paradise. I contend that Tertullian’s claim has been misunderstood in the last few decades of scholarship because of a failure to contextualize his remark within his rhetorical strategy. Disentangling Tertullian’s convictions from his rhetoric is notoriously difficult, and yet by reading Tertullian as fully immersed in the tactics from the Second Sophistic Movement recent scholars have made great advances in our understanding of this North African Christian writer. Several of Tertullian’s other works provide counter-evidence to the idea that only martyrs go to heaven: specifically, Tertullian further defines “heaven,” its location, and its occupants; additionally, Tertullian clarifies who is a “martyr” in his wider oeuvre. When Tertullian’s own teachings on the afterlife are retrieved, then one can re-read De anima to see how Tertullian has cloaked these with rhetorical devices meant to refute the Valentinian notion of the soul’s ascent through multiple heavens. This idea that Tertullian believed only martyrs gain immediate access to heaven—which has often been repeated in the most recent century’s secondary literature—is itself a misunderstanding of earlier modern scholarship.