Aelius Aristides between Greece, Rome, and the Gods (Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition)

INTRODUCTION

wv.

lIARRrs

Aelius Aristides' Embassy Speech to Achilles (Oration XVI) seems at first reading a ham-fisted piece of work. It takes the form of a speech aimed at assuaging the wrath of Achilles with Agamemnon, like the speeches that Homer gives to Odysseus, Phoenix and Ajax in Iliad IX. I But unlike the clever speeches of Odysseus and Phoenix, it would have been much more likely to inflame Achilles than win him over: 'you seem to hate your fellow-countrymen', says the fictitious orator, 'and fear battle too' (sect. 6). Aristides, however, was not attempting to put himself in the place of a Bronze-Age prince or an archaic poet-though he was attempting as so often to live in the past and to take his audience there with him-, but to demonstrate with maximum cleverness the lack of logic, from his own point of view; in Achilles' behaviour; and in this aim he more or less succeeded. The subtle understanding of furious anger that was demonstrated by Aristides' contemporary Galen was not the sophist's forte, but it was not his interest either. The Embassy Speech to Achilles can serve rather well as an introduction to some of the investigations that are carried forward in this book. In the first place, it shows Aristides in his literary context. The speech displays of course an intimate knowledge of Homer-and no overt interest in anything that had been written since Homer's time about the wrath of Achilles or about anger more generally (between the lines, however, one can see that Aristides, though he avoids anachronism, was familiar with the cliches about moderate anger that were part of the Greek and Roman cultural patrimony). So what was Aristides' relationship to archaic and classical Greek literature? Not simple, for while it is obvious that knowledge of the poetry of that era was a cultural marker, in fact the cultural marker, of an educated Greek, there

I As to how Aristides came to be writing on such a theme, see Kindstrand 1973, 215---216. According to Behr 1968, 95, the 'substance' of this declamation is 'the importance of fame', but that is an eccentric judgement.

2

W.V. HARRIS

was emulation involved ('modesty', as Raffaella Cribiore observes later in this volume, 'was not an attribute of Aristides'), and individual taste too. The studies grouped in the first part of the book are concerned above all with the sophist's intimate mental connection with the literary and mythical traditions of the Greeks. What does the pattern of Aristides' citation of the archaic poets mean, and what in particular does it mean that he so generously cites Pindar (Ewen Bowie's culminating question)? How, in flattering the Athenians, is he to deal with the truthloving and unavoidable Thucydides, who was willing to show them at their worst (Estelle Oudot's theme)? Were the great classical myths still important, still viable, in the world of the Second Sophistic, and how could they be adapted for contemporary use (the questions answered here by Suzanne Said)? In this context too we can place Glen Bowersock's discussion of Aristides' detestation of the pantomimes, those solo performers who brought much of the repertoire of the classical theatre before the Antonine public. Another striking feature of the Embassy Speech to Achilles, especially if you come to it fresh from Homer, is its repeated reference to the Trojan War as a conflict between the Greeks and the 'barbarians': 'if you must be permanently angry, I would say that it should be with the barbarians, our natural enemies' (sect. 4) (the latter trope reappears in sect. 26). 2 In the Iliad Odysseus and Phoenix speak of the harm that Achilles has done the Achaeans by his withdrawal, but Homer never of course calls the Trojans barbarians;" Aristides applies the term to them seven times in a few pages and concludes his speech on this note. That will seem banal. But there is more: it will have been a sleepy Greek listener or reader who never for a moment thought that Aristides might be alluding to the Romans in the guise of their Trojan 'ancestors', especially since, as Laurent Pernot points out in detail in his contribution to this book, both Aristides and his public were accustomed to the practice of 'figured speech'. At all events, Aristides' thoughts and feelings about Rome and its empire were more complex than used to be realized when 70 Rome (Or.

2 The 'barbarians' had been the 'natural enemies' of the Greeks, at least for many, since Pi. Rep. V.47oc, if not earlier. 3 The Carians are barbarophonoi in ii.867. This difference between Homer and Aristides has often been noticed: see for instance Boulanger 1923, 274.

INTRODUCTION

3

XXVI) was taken at face value. The third part of this volume-the papers by Pernot, Francesca Fontanella and Carlo Franco-accordingly considers the political aspects of his writings. 300 years after the annexation of provincia Asia the Greeks were still not wholly reconciled to their subordinate though privileged role." Plutarch had warned a young man elected to office in a Greek city that for crossing their Roman rulers, 'many' had suffered 'that terrible chastiser, the axe that cuts the neck' (Praecepta rei gerendae 17 = Mor. 813£). Who could be at ease in such a situation? But Greek attitudes gradually changed: every individual had his point of view; but Celsus Polemaeanus represents one stage, Plutarch another, Aristides yet another, Lucian and Cassius Dio still others. There are two other important elements in Aristides' identity (and here I leave behind the Embassy Speech to Achilles), apart of course from his main identity as an orator and a sophist.' These two elements, closely connected with each other, are his religiosity and his status as an invalid." We have mainly concentrated both of these topics in the second part of the book, holding that with Aristides the personal is to some extent prior to the political. We have called this whole collection Aelius Aristides between Greece, Rome, and the Gods in part because the clearest element in Aristides' personality is his religiosity, and an important part of his preferred identity consisted of his devotion to Asclepius. Pernot, in the footsteps of Bowersock, reminds us how Aristides used this identity as a means of squirming out of office-holding, but no reader of the Sacred Tales could doubt that the devotion was real as well as convenient. It suited both Aristides' narcissistic personality'<-well brought out by Dana Fields, though she avoids the term-to believe that he was a favourite of the gods and of Asclepius in particular. No better indication of his

4 Going against a recent trend, C.P. Jones 2004 has, however, argued with respect to the cultured Greek intellectuals of this age that their 'supposed Hellenic patriotism, sometimes assumed to be equivalent to Hellenism, is a chimaera', Hellenes being only one of their identities (14). 5 On the propriety of calling Aristides a sophist, a label he would have rejected, see among others Flinterman 2002, 199. 6 In fact Aristides' religiosity comes out in xvi.ze. 7 For a justification of the use of this concept with respect to Aristides see Andersson and Roos 1997, 31-38. For some further quite adventurous discussion of narcissism in second-century Asia Minor see Kent 2007.

W.V. HARRIS

4

religiosity could be found than his conviction that Asclepius constantly sent him messages in his dreams, even when the god did not appear in his own person. B Aristides was evidently led to Asclepius by his preoccupation with his health, a preoccupation that has been variously diagnosed. He is customarily spoken of as a hypochondriac, but without knowing more than we can really know about his actual health such a judgement is scarcely possible." Galen saw Aristides as physically weak. 10 Many have speculated about his ailments and their possible psychological origins. In recent times this interest has recast itself in the language of the body. Brooke Holmes observes that 'biographical-diagnostic approaches to Aristides have given way to studies that situate him within his cultural and historical milieu', and that trend, which gathered strength in the 1960s (Behr, Bowersock), continues. To some extent, however, her paper, and also those of Janet Downie and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, combine the two approaches. It is certainly a challenge to know how to interpret Aristides' writing about his own physical condition, given the complexity of the cultural traditions that were at work and the author's own idiosyncrasies. Holmes turns a sceptical eye to modish 1990S chatter about 'bodies becoming texts', seeking-as I understand it-to show how Aristides tried to use his dreams to interpret his medical condition, and how he thought that 'archiving' an immense number of dreams would help him. 'The body is... written into stories that are first staged in dreams then recorded in the archive. By interpreting these stories, Aristides is able to act on the body in such a way as to restore it to a primeval state of harmony'. No reader of the Sacred Tales can fail to be struck by the author's deep interest in one particular physical activity, namely bathing. Where does this tendentially luxurious interest fit in the austere life and complex self-presentation of the hard-working rhetor? Janet Downie's paper on this subject brings out, perhaps more than any other in this volume, the complexity of Aristides' personality. A central feature of that personality was overweening conceit. Fields's paper, by means of a contrast with Plutarch, shows us the depth

On this practice of his see Harris 2009, chapter I. 'He was not merely a hypochondriac. However, he treated his illnesses with the same care as a hypochondriac', Andersson and Roos 1997,37. 10 See the Arabic text cited by Behr 1968, 162, Bowersock 1969, 62, and byJones at the beginning of his paper. B

9

INTRODUCTION

5

and the significance of this conceit, and serves as a transition from his self-presentation to his views about and position (or non-position) in politics. We come back, as always, to the world of competitive oratory. And it was to Aristides the orator that most contemporaries, and most later readers until the twentieth century, reacted. The last part of this volume concerns itself with some of these reactions, from the contemporary admirer Phrynichus (Christopher Jones), via his greatest late-antique emulator Libanius (Raffaella Cribiore), down to Byzantine times when, as Luana Quattrocelli shows in our final chapter, the only objection to him seems to have been his devotion to the wrong god. There is much more to investigate. Swain, for example, has written that Aristides 'enjoyed enormous popularity for his rhetorical prowess',11 and it would be worth enquiring further into what such popularity meant in Greece in the second century, with large auditoria in vogue but no democracy in the old sense in sight. More should also be said about Aristides' religious experience (another concept that is contested)-and on this we look forward to the forthcoming book by Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis. But as for actually empathizing with the humourless rhetor;" that may be beyond us.

11

1996, 254.

Janet Downie detects 'ironic humor' in the dream description in Or. xlvii.rq. But see on the other hand xxviii.qg and the whole ofxxix Concerning the Prohibition rifComedy, among other passages. 12

CHAPTER ONE

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

EWEN BOWIE

This paper investigates Aristides' quotations of and allusions to early Greek lyric, elegiac and iambic poetry. One reason for its restriction to these poets is that I have been looking at their citation and other ways they are drawn upon in a number of imperial Greek texts.' But an equally important reason for the exclusion of other early poetry, above all of Homer, Hesiod and other hexameter poetry, is because its inclusion would undoubtedly have raised issues that would have required a much longer paper. The London doctorate of 'T.K. Gkourogiannis, entitled Pindaric Qyotations in Aelius Aristides, completed in 1999, registered the presence in Aristides of 253 citations of the Iliad and 93 of the 04Jssey.2 This is a far larger number than Aristides' quotations of tragedy or comedy, where Gkourogiannis documented 45 for Aristophanes; 26 for Euripides; 16 for Sophocles; IO for Aeschylus; and five each for Eupolis, Cratinus and Menander. In some respects the proportion of these quotations between Homer, tragedy and comedy show Aristides to be not dissimilar to other authors writing in this period, or to what we know of readers' habits from papyri," though the frequency of Aristides' citation of Menander is rather low, and of Aristophanes rather high: this is partly because of his extensive exploitation of Aristophanes for Athenian history in Oration 3 (which has some 16 citations), partly, I suspect, because Aristides was drawn, or was made by his tutor Alexander of Cotiaeum, to read Aristophanes with due care and attention in order to beefup his Atticism.'

! In Athenaeus, Bowie 2000; in Plutarch, Bowie 1997 and forthcoming (b); in Philostratus' Apollonius in Bowie forthcoming (a); in Stobaeus in Bowie forthcoming (c). 2 Gkourogiannis 1999. 3 Kruger 1990. 4 For Aristophanes in other authors of the period, see Bowie 2007.

10

EWENBOWIE

What, then, emerges from an examination of this relatively narrow range of poets? On the one hand there is a huge preponderance of citations of Pin dar, a phenomenon to which I shall return. Pindar apart, however, Aristides' citations of early lyric, elegiac and iambic poetry are perhaps surprisingly few. They are set out in my Table, and it is on the basis of the evidence presented there that I offer the following observations. Aristides undoubtedly knows the names of Sappho and Alcaeus (Or. 32.24).5 Of Alcaeus, however, he cites only two phrases: one is an apparently well-known gnome (aV()gE~ yag :lt6A.LO~ :lt1Jgyo~ agE{,LO~, fro II2.1O Voigt) at Or. 3.298 and Or. 23.68 (cf Or. 25.64);6 the other is the idea of shooting arrows in the dark, EX 'tou ~6qJo'U 'tOl;E{,OV'tE~ xa't' 'AAxaLov (fr. 437 Voigt) at Or. 2.264 (our only source for this fragment). It is possible that Sappho fro 34 Voigt is cited at Or. 1.II in the phrase OEATJv'r]v aO'tEgE~ EyxAeLo'UOLv, but since Aristides ascribes it to 'some poet' (:ltOL'r]'ttl~ o.v et:ltOL 'tL~) he may not be citing Sappho at all, or he may not realise that it is she whom he is citing. That makes it hard to assess his claim at Or. 18.{ to cite Sappho in the phrase 'destroying the gaze' (ou ()LaqJ'fteLgov 'ta~ O'IjJEL~, w~ EqJ'r] La:ltqJw): editors have created Sappho fro 196 Voigt from this, but as Campbell noted it may be some sort of recollection offr. 31.II Voigt.' Fr. 193 Voigt may also not deserve the status of a separate fragment, since the reference at Or. 28.51 to Sappho boasting to some women thought to be fortunate, EU()aL!10VE~, that the Muses had made her really fortunate and that it was she who would be remembered after her death, may be a reference to either fro 55 Voigt, fro 65 Voigt or fro 147 Voigt. Whatever the intended reference of Or. 28.51, however, these three places do yield at least two citations of Sappho. There are also what seem to be several citations of Aleman. At least three of these are at Or. 28.51-54, where he is simply called 'the Laconian poet', as he is also at Or. 41.7 in the citation of fro 56 Page, and in the citation of a hexameter, fro 107 Page, at Or. 2.129 (though here the description 0 'tWV :ltag'frEvwv E:ltaLVE't'r]~ xat o{,!1~o'UAo~ ... 0 AaXE()aL!16vLO~ :ltOL'r]'tTJ~ makes it quite certain that Aristides believed

5

Aristides' works are cited from the edition of Lenz-Behr 1976-1980 for Orations

1-16 and from the edition ofKeil 1898 for Orations 17-53. 6 Our other sources for this poem are papyrus fragments of the first century A.D., the scholia on Aes. Pers. 352 and Soph. Oed.Tyr. 56, and the Suda s.v. UQT]'LOL A 3843. 7 Campbell 1982, 185 n. 2, on fro 196.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

II

himself to be citing Aleman, despite the metre of the line). For two citations in Oration 3 (fr. ro8 Page at Or. 3.294 and fro 164 Page at Or. 3.82) we have only the scholiast's evidence that the poet is Aleman, Overall, however, it is clear that Aristides has some recollection of and use for Aleman, and in this he is comparable, for example, to Plutarch. In his citation of other poets, however, I have been struck by the difference between Aristides and some other writers of this period. There are indeed some references to the Palinode of Stesichorus, which was clearly quite widely known, but only one phrase which might be a quotation, fro 241 Davies at Or. 33.2 f-tE'tELI.u be btl ihEQOV :ltQOOLf-tLOV xu'ta L'tT)OLX,oQOV. 8 As for Simonides, there are two citations in Oration 28 which may be from his melic poetry, and at Or. 31.2 Aristides shows knowledge of, but does not quote, a presumably melic 'frQfjvo~ for a dead Thessalian patron Antiochus (fr. 582 Page), but there is nothing from Simonides' melic or elegiac poetry associated with the Persian wars, despite the exploitation in Oration 28 of Persian war epigrams, to which I shall shortly turn. But of other melic poets there is hardly a trace: no Ibycus, no Anacreon, no citation or even mention of Bacchylides, and although Timocreon is named (Or. 3.612) his poetry is not cited. Of the elegists no use is made of Theognis, and although Tyrtaeus' role in early Spartan history is twice mentioned (Or. 8.18; Or. 11.65), there is no clear indication that Aristides knew his poetry. 9 One case, however, may point to the issue simply being one of citation rather than of knowledge. That is the case of Archilochus. Although there is nothing that is certainly a verbatim citation, Aristides mentions Archilochus several times by name, and the reference at Or. 3.6II to the various people whom he vilified (EAEyE xuxw~)-his friend Pericles, his enemy Lycambes and a man perhaps called Charilaussuggests that Aristides knew a number of Archilochus' iambic poems

8 As I shall argue elsewhere the phrase ll.UTU TOV ~Tl]olxoQov seems to be a reference to a poetic trope and not to be a way of marking the expression ~ETEL~L lIE btl ETEQOV 1tQOOl~LOV as a quotation. 9 Other early poets named but not quoted are Philoxenus (in connection with Dionysius at Or. 3.391) and (less remarkably!) Arion (Or. 2.336 and 376) and Terpander (Or. 2.336; Or. 3.231 and 242; Or. 24.3). It is just possible that Semonides of Amorgos is the source for Or. 2.166, where Aristides quotes two iambic lines, to illuminate which the scholiast cites Eur. fro IIIO Nauck, though cf Semonides fro 1.1---2 West.

12

EWENBOWIE

(i.e. the poems from which fro 124 West, fro 167 West and fro 172 West are drawn, or other poems involving Lycambes now entirely lost). So, too, the reference a little later in the same speech to 'the apes of Archilochus' ('AQXLAOXOlJ :lti:tl'T]XOL, 3.664), points to knowledge of at least one of Archilochus' animal fables, perhaps of the fable told in frr. 185187 West (which almost certainly provided him with the cunning little vixen, aA.w:ltTJ~ ... xEQ~aA.fj, of 3.676).10 It would therefore certainly be unwise to infer from Aristides' failure to quote an archaic poet that he did not know any of that poet's work, or indeed from his failure to mention a poet by name that neither poet nor poetry were known to him. Moreover it is probably inappropriate to think, as I initially did, in terms of comparison with the whole range of writers of this period. Each of these writers has his own agenda, and the two texts that are our most prolific sources of poetic quotation, Plutarch and Athenaeus, can each be explained differently. Plutarch uses poetry to reinforce various types of argument in the so-called Moralia, but Plutarch's citation is at its most frequent in Oy,aestiones Convivates, largely, I would guess, because of their sympotic frame. The frequency of citation is much lower in the Lines." Athenaeus in his Deipnosophistae has invented a gathering in which he and his personae loquentes---or indeed loquaces-are keen to adduce evidence for their arguments from an ostentatiously wide and sometimes recondite range of poetry. A quite different agenda drives Pausanias the periegete, hence the remarkable range of his poetic quotation, which includes some very rare figures. If Aristides is compared only with those second- and thirdcentury figures to whom his rhetorical activity brings him closer, Dio of Prusa, Maximus of Tyre and Philostratus of Athens, he begins to look less odd. The following paragraphs set out some aspects of these three writers' habits of quotation for comparison.

10 'Almost' certainly, because the lion, UVtL AEOvtO~, of Or. 3.676 cannot easily be accommodated in the poem of frr. 185-187West. Note that Dio contrasted Archilochus' vixen with Homer's lions at 55.IO. 11 See Bowie forthcoming (b).

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

13

Dio qf Prusa Dio mentions Sappho twice in the second Kingship Oration, at 2.28 and 64.3, but he never quotes her poetry. 12 The passage at 2.28 is that where Alexander, in dialogue with Philip, pronounces the poetry of Sappho and Anacreon unsuitable for princes, and commends instead Stesichorus and Pindar, and above all Homer, whom he judges preferable to Tyrtaeus. Later in this work (2.59) Dio has his character Alexander quote six lines of a Spartan embaterum which the scholiast plausibly identifies as a poem of Tyrtaeus; and at 2.62 Dio presents him as quoting, albeit with disapproval, Anacreon's I I -line prayer to Dionysus, the Nymphs and Aphrodite to secure him the current object of his desire, Cleobulus, fro 357 Page." Alcaeus, Aleman and Ibycus are not mentioned at all by Dio. Stesichorus' Palinode is referred to at 2.13 and in the Trojan Oration, 11.41 (arguably merely paraphrasing Plato Phaedrus 243a); his widely cited 'IALO'll 3tEQOL£ is commended at 2.33 ('t'~v aAwow oux ava~Lw£ E3tOLrjOE 't'fi£ TQoLa£) in support of his claim to a prince's attention;" the point there made that he imitated Homer is repeated in Oration 55, On Homer and Socrates, 55.6-7. The same point is made there about Archilochus, and Archilochus does indeed do rather better at Dio's hands than the poets I have so far mentioned. Later in Oration 55 Dio refers to the vixen of Archilochus (55.ro: 't'~v 'AQXLA.OXO'll aAo>JtExa), presumably a reference either to frr. 172-181 West or to frr. 185-187 West. In the first Tarsian oration, Oration 33, Dio picks out Archilochus as a paradigm of an outspoken critic, the role that he himself is adopting towards the people of Tarsus. He shows knowledge of the secondary tradition about Archilochus' poetic gifts and his death (33.12), comparing and contrasting him with the praisepoet Homer. A little later, at 33.17, he cites the first two lines of four tetrameters, fro 114 West, on the better type of general, O't'Qa't'T]y6£, then paraphrases lines 3 and 4 in a way that suggests he had a text slightly different from that cited by Galen. Finally he invokes Archilochus again near the end of the speech (33.61). 12 [Dio] 37.47 quotes a line of Sappho, fro 147 Voigt, which may indeed be the reference of Aristides Or. 28.51 (see above), but this speech is generally agreed to be by Favorinus, not by Dio. 13 Dio is indeed our only source for the full text of this fragment, which may be a complete poem. 14 For citation of this poem in imperial Greek sources see frr. 196-204 Davies, and for its highlighting on Tabulae Iliacae, Horsfall 1979.

EWENBOWIE

Oration 60, Nessus or Deianeira, opens with a report of criticism of Archilochus for having his Deianeira deliver an almost epic narrative (Qa'ljJw60uouv) of her wooing by Achelous at the very point at which she is the victim of sexual assault by Nessus (fr. 286 West). Dio seems to know this poem and discussions of it, and his remarks are a valuable clue to its identification as one of Archilochus' now well-documented narrative elegies. 15 Dio Oration 74, On Mistrust, also seems to know fro 173 West, though I suspect that his relation of it to Archilochus' prospective marriage to a member of Lycambes' family arises from his familiarity with the secondary tradition and not from a careful reading of the poem.

Maximus

of Tyre

Maximus has an especially large number of citations of Anacreon and Sappho, concentrated in and prompted by his four Dialexeis on Eros (18-21 Trapp). Some 15 fragments of Sappho are cited in one paragraph of Dialexis 18, viz. 18.9, and these are Maximus' only citations of Sappho. The same paragraph has four of Maximus' citations of Anacreon. Anacreon is also mentioned in Maximus' list at Dialexis 37.5 of poets whose poetry either calmed or excited their audiencesPindar, Tyrtaeus, Telesilla, Alcaeus and Anacreon. He has no citation of Alcaeus, and neither citation nor even mention of Aleman and Ibycus, or of the elegists Callinus, Mimnermus and Theognis. Solon is mentioned several times, but not for his poetry. The one citation of Stesichorus, opening Dialexis 21.1, OUX E01;' E't1)!!O£ Myo£, ascribed by Maximus to the poet of Himera, 6 'I!!EQuto£ 'toLTJ'tT]£, in words that assign it to his Palinode, may well be taken from Plato Phaedrus 243a. The Palinode is, of course, the only poem of Stesichorus of which Aristides shows knowledge. Simonides also gets only one citation, the phrase XUAE:1tOV Eo{}A6v E!!!!EVaL, i.e. fro 542.13 Page, at Dialexis 30.1, where Maximus ascribes it to an old song, XaLa :n:UAUWV ~o!!u: this too may well come from Plato, in this case from Protagoras 339c. There is no mention of Bacchylides, but as with Aristides, albeit to a much lesser extent, there is some use of Pindar: perhaps the reference to Etna in Pythian 1.20 at Dialexis 5.4 and Dialexis 41.1; perhaps Pythian 3.1ff. for Chiron at

15

See Bowie

2001.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

IS

Dialexis 28.1. But there is only one verbatim citation, that of fro 213 Snell-Maehler, as the introductory text of Dialexis 12, the subject of which is whether it is right to commit injustice against somebody who has done so to onesel£ In this case Maximus seems very likely to have used a text of Pindar, since the earlier quotation which may have drawn the passage to his attention, by Plato in Republic 36Sb, constitutes only two of the four lines cited by Maximus. Like any author, of course, Maximus can come up with surprises: in his case the surprise is the citation of the first two lines of Ariphron's Paean to Hygieia, PMG fro 813 Page, described as an uQXaLov {lolla and not attributed nominatim to Ariphron."

Philostratus

if Athens' Apollonius

In his Apollonius Philostratus' chief poetic intertext is Homer, and there are also several citations of or allusions to Attic tragedy, especially to Euripides. Again lyric and elegiac poetry is rare. Archilochus figures twice: a reference to his 'shield' elegy, fro S West, at 2.7.2, and to his elegy addressed to Pericles on the occasion of the death of friends at sea, fro 13 West, at 7.26.2: in both cases the poet is named. Sappho's poetry is mentioned at 1.30, but nothing is quoted, nor is there any verbatim allusion. Pindar is twice cited: at 7.12.4, Pythian 1.10-13 is paraphrased (the lyre charms Ares), and at 6.26.2 Philo stratus refers to a poem mentioning a i'laLIlOlv that watches over the source of the Nile (fr. 282 Snell-Maehler), Again, as with Archilochus, Pindar is named each time. The same locus, 6.26.2, has the only certain mention of Stesichorus, predictably of his Palinode, referred to by precisely this title: Stesichorus himself is called simply uV~Q 'IIlEQaLo£.17 The final lyric intertext of the Apollonius, as in the case of Maximus, is a surprise: at 3.17.2, Sophocles' Paean to Asclepius (PMG fro 737a Page)."

16 For the resurrection of Ariphron's Paean in the second century A.D. see Bowie 2006, 85--86. 17 4.II.S may also derive from the Palinode. 18 For a fuller discussion of the citations in Philostratus' Apollonius see Bowie forthcoming (a); for discussion of Sophocles' Paean in the second century A.D. see Bowie 2006, 84-85'

16

EWENBOWIE

Aristides After these comparisons the thinness of the harvest from Aristides looks less surprising. Moreover it seems that one category of his compositions, I-tEAE'taL, is one in which citation of the poets was unusual. Aristides of course makes extensive use of the Iliad for his Embassy to Achilles (Oration 16), but understandably he does not cite any of Book g-Book 9 had not been composed at the dramatic date of Oration 16! Or. 8.18 and Or. 11.65 refer to Tyrtaeus as a poet sent by Athens to help Sparta, but none of his poetry is quoted. Appeals to Athenians never cite Solon; those to Thebes never cite Pindar. I take this to be a feature of the genre, and think that this view is supported by the absence of poetic quotation in Polemo's two surviving I-tEAE't'aL. Where, then, does Aristides quote early poetry, and what is the basis of his choices? The speeches in which quotation abounds are Orations 2, 3, 28 and 45. 19 Oration 28 is a special case to which I shall return. Orations 2 and 3 are attacking Plato and philosophers in defense of rhetoric, and it might be suggested that Aristides' habit of citation is something he has caught from philosophical writing. Oration 45, to Sarapis, may be Aristides' earliest extant work, perhaps from April 142 A.D. 20 Here too a special explanation can be offered. In this Oration Aristides is setting out his case that prose has as strong a claim as poetry to be used for hymns to the gods: as has been well argued by Vassilaki, Aristides tackles this task first by citing poetry, and prominently Pindar's poetry, in order to criticize it, and then moves on to use allusion to the poets to achieve mimesis of poetry" In each case, however, we see the phenomenon that stands out in Aristides' citation of early poetry; his preference for citing Pindar. Often Pindar is the only early poet to be cited. Only twice are there speeches where another poet is cited and Pindar is not: in Or. 18.4, the monody for Smyrna, Aristides names Sappho and seems to paraphrase her (see

19 Perhaps Oration 20 should be added, but the presence of three Pindaric citations is hardly enough. 20 For the date of Oration 45 see Behr 1981,419. Behr's notes there (op. cit., 420-422), show how much citation from Homer is also to be found in this speech (and, at Or. 45.18, an allusion to Ariphron PMC fro 813 Page; cf above on Maximus of Tyre). Our other candidate for Aristides' earliest surviving work is The Rlwdian Oration 25, for whose Aristidean authorship see]ones 1990. For an analysis of Aristides' procedures in Oration 45 see Russell 1990, 201-209; Pernot 1993a, II, 642-645; Vassilaki 2005. 21 Vassilaki 2005, unfortunately unaware of Russell 1990.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

17

above); the speech's only other poetic allusion is to Odyssey 6.231, which follows closely in Or. 18.4 and is not signalled. In the very short Oration to Heracles, at 40.6, Aristides' phrase 'tOUi; vouou; 'tOLi; O:ltAOLi; oUY'KEQavvui; mqy allude to the expression in Solon fro 36.15 West, 0J-t0ii ~LTjV re 'Kat bL'KTjV ;uvaQJ-tooai;, a line that it is clear from Or. 28.138 that he knew; but that there is an allusion here is far from certain. The big question, then, is 'Why Pindar?' It is a question to which there can be no certain answer." The citations attest Aristides' good knowledge and admiration not only for the epinicia but for several works of Pindar in other genres too. And within the epinicia he shows no knowledge of the Nemeans. To me the most persuasive explanation is that Aristides responded to Pindar's praise of the importance of outstanding natural capacities, which Aristides was convinced that he himself had, and of the importance of sustained effort in realizing these capacities, something Aristides was also more than ready to apply. Such praise could also be found in Bacchylides and, doubtless, already in epinicia of Simonides that we have lost: but no ancient critic questioned Pindar's poetic superiority. Dio in his second Kingship Oration picked out his AaJ-t:ltQo'tTj'ta 'tiii; cpuOEWi; (2.33), and his supremacy was affirmed unhesitatingly by Longinus' On the Sublime: 'tL M; EV JlEAEm JlUMOV av Elvm BUXXUAihT]~ EAOLO Tl mV()uQo~, XUL EV 'tQUyq>()L~ ~IOlV 0 Xtoc Tl vi] dLa ~o(POXAfj~; EJtEL()i] ol JlEV (i()LCX:7t'tOl'tOL xaL EV 't

Take lyric poetry: would you rather be Bacchylides or Pindar? Take tragedy: would you rather be Ion of Chios or Sophocles? Ion and Bacchylides are impeccable, uniformly beautiful writers in the polished manner; but it is Pindar and Sophocles who sometimes set the world on fire with their vehemence, for all that their flame often goes out without reason and they collapse dismally. (Longinus, On the Sublime 33.5, Trans. D.A. Russell)

The last comment of Longinus also gives us a hint of why Pindar might seem an especially kindred spirit to Aristides. The phrase 'their flame often goes out without reason and they collapse dismally' could well have been spoken of the early part of Aristides' own career.

22 For other respects in which Aristides shared the outlooks and ideas of Pindar cf Vassilaki 2005, 331-335.

18

EWENBOWIE

This may, or may not, be a satisfactory account of why in citing lyric poetry Aristides often looked no further than Pindar. The speech where he clearly does look much further is Oration 28, :7tEQL 'tOu :7tuQuqJt}eYllu'tO!;, Concerning a Digression (usually translated Concerning a Remark in Passing). The speech purports to have been provoked by a criticism made of an incident when Aristides, in the middle of delivering an oration in praise of Athena (our Oration 37, in Keil's view), departed from his text to voice some praise of himself and his own eloquence. His aim in Oration 28 is to amass canonical classical precedents for self-praise. In doing so he moves fairly systematically through Greek literature: Homer the poet at section 19; Hesiod at 20-24; gods and heroes as presented in Homer at 25 to 48; Apollo's oracles at 48; Sappho at 51; Aleman at 51 to 54. Then at 55 to 58 he offers five quotations from Pindar (see my Table). These quotations are followed by several citations of which the first are explicitly ascribed to Simonides, and the following six are presented as if Aristides believes that they are also from Simonides. The problems raised by this sequence may be of more interest to the investigators of the transmission of Simonides' epigrams, and of the existence of a Sylloge Simonidea, than they are to scholars working on Aristides, but the problem casts light on how Aristides may have operated in seeking out appropriate poetic quotations, so I shall review it briefly. At Or. 28.60, after reminding his audience of the 'moderation of Simonides' ('ttlV yE 'tOu ~LllwVL()01J oWqJQomJV'I]V, Or. 28.59), Aristides cites two fragments of elegiac poetry that could be either from an elegy or from an elegiac epigram (Simonides fro 89 West2), and must have been thought by Aristides to be by Simonides: I-tvtil-t!l b' oihLVU qJTJI-tL ~LI-tWVLb!ll.ooqJUQLtELV

and then 6ybW'ltoV'tUEtEL:rrmbl AEW:rrQE:rrEO~.

This pentameter also appears as the sixth line of Further Greek Epigrams 'Simonides' 28, part of a couplet quoted by Plutarch On Whether Old Men Should Engage in Politics 3 (Mor. 78sA):23 the full six lines of this poem are cited first by Syrianus on Hermogenes (Rabe, 86), where their author is not named.

23 Page ad loe. does not note the appearance of 28.6 at fro 89.2 West.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

19

Then at Or. 28.63 Aristides cites Further Greek Epigrams 'Simonides' 21 and 38. His citation of ,Simonides' 21 is a version of the two-liner on the batde of Marathon quoted by Lycurgus at lO8-lO9: the first line is the same, 'EJJ..~vwv :7tQ0!1Uxo'iivtEi; 'A'frTjVULOL MUQU'fr&VL. In Aristides, however, the second line, the pentameter, runs EX'tELVUV M~~wv EWEU !1'UQLli~ui;, whereas in Lycurgus it is XQ'UooqJoQwv M~~wv EOLOQEOUV MVU!1LV. Page (1981, 229) was surely right to argue that Lycurgus' version is to be preferred, and that it may have been inscribed beside the Soros on the plain of Marathon. 'Simonides' 38 is a couplet on the fallen at Byzantium (for the problem of its date see Page 1981, 253): Aristides is the only source for this epigram. Next, at Or. 28.64, Aristides cites the eight lines of ,Simonides' 45, a poem he was to quote again almost twenty years later, at Or. 3.140141. These eight lines are also known from Diodorus Siculus 11.62.3 and Anthologia Palatina 7.296: among other indications that the epigram is indeed from the fifth century E.G. is its imitation in an epigram inscribed at Xanthus in Lycia at the end of that century" The next citation follows immediately, at Or. 28.64: it is of the first line and the opening of the second line of the four-line version of 'Simonides' 3 that was current throughout antiquity, from IG I 334 and IG 12 394 through Herodotus 5.77.2 to Diodorus Siculus lO.24.3 and Anthologia Palatina 6.343 (see Page 1981, 191-193):25 l!tIvw Bouordrv xaL XaAXLMwv

(\al-LaaaV'tE~

:ltat(\E~ 'A'Ih]vaLwv

At Or. 28.65 Aristides moves from Attic examples, which he concedes might be overheated, to Doric: first he cites 'Simonides' 22a, known from Herodotus 7.228.1 and also found in Diodorus 11.33 and Anthologia Palatina 7.248; then 'Simonides' 12, of which the first couplet is known from Plutarch On the Meanness ofHerodotus 39 (Mor. 870E) and Anthologia Palatina 7.250. Aristides, however, is our only source for lines 3-6. This substantial sequence concludes with a taunt by Aristides to his critic: 'So this is the right time for you mock these men as loquacious corpses who do not know how to remain calm' (WOLE wQu om OXW:7tLELV uii'tovi; Wi; MoMOXUi; 'tLVai; VEXQOVi; 'Kat OUX etM'tai; ~O'UXLUV

24 25

TAM 1.44.1 = Kaibel Ep.Gr. 768 = CEG 888. IG 12 394 has the line order 3-2-1-4.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

21

were grouped according to their metrical category (as for example in editions of Archilochusj."

Conclusions Conclusions can be briefly stated. Aristides' knowledge of early Greek lyric, elegiac and iambic poetry cannot be demonstrated to range as widely as that of some of his contemporaries, but he probably knew much more than he chose to quote, and it was only for particular purposes that he quoted these (or other) poets liberally in his work. Of the poets of this and indeed oflater periods it is above all Pindar whom he cites most often, partly, I argue, because he saw a kindred spirit in his occasionally flawed brilliance. When it was needed, however, he could amass citations from poets whom he hardly mentions elsewhere, like Simonides and Solon in Oration 28, apparently enjoying access to a collection of Simonides' poetry comprising elegiac, epigrammatic and perhaps lyric poetry, and to an edition of Solon's poetry that had at least trochaic tetrameter and iambic trimeter poems.

26 Note too that the iambics quoted in Ath. Pol. 12.5 (= fro 37 West) would also have suited Aristides' purpose but are not quoted by him here, though he does quote fro 37.9IO West at Or. 3.547.

22

EWENBOWIE

Citations by speeches in the numerical order of the editions of Lenz-Behr and Keil: an asterisk indicates that Aristides is our only source for the fragment: Orn. Alcaeus

Aleman

Archilochus

Pindar fro 76.2 (DithAth.3) @401, also?@9 & 12427 [also @Or. 8.21, Or. 20.13]

2

437V@*464 (a shot in the dark)

107P@*129

259W@406

01.2.94-96 @109 01. 9.27-29 & 100-102 @11O Py. 2. 94-96 @230 Py. 8.95 @148 fro 38 (?Persephone hymn) @*1l2 [also @ Or. 3.466] fro 31 (?Zeus hymn) @ *420 fro 81 (Dith. 2)+fr.169.16-17 @229--230 fro 169 1--6 @26 28

3

112V 29@298

108P@2943o 164P@82 31

124W, 167W & 172W or an-other Lycambes poem @611 185-187W @664&?676

fro 37 @*37 (+~ fro 38 (?Persephone hymn) @* 466 [also @Or. 2.112] fr.32 (Zeus hymn) @ 620 32 fro 95 @191 [also @Or. 42.12] fr.260 @478 33

4

Is. 4.48 (66) @27

8

fro 76.2 (DithAthen.3) @21 [also @ Or. 1.401, Or. 20.13]

17

01.1.37 @3 Py. 3.43@4

not EQELOJ.lU. Extent and form are those of the citation in PI. Gorg. 484b, but lines 16-17 are cited by Aristides at 229. 29 Also known from ~ Aes. Pets. 352 and Soph. O.T. 56, P. Berolin. 9569 (first century 27 EQUJ.lU 28

A.D.) 30 Aristides in the first instance is quoting Plato (whom he names) Laws 705a: the scholiast on Aristides cites Aleman I08P in comparison, as does Arsenius for the similar proverb (Apostol. Cent. 2.23 (ii 271L-S)). 31 Aleman, according to the scholiast, but not named by Aristides. 32 Also Plut, de I}th. or. 6 (Mor. 397A), animo procr. 33 (Mor. I030A). 33 P. Harris 21=1113 SM.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

Sappho

Simonides

Solon

Stesichorus

Pal @128, 166

34V@1l

Pal@234

582P at 97 34 45FGE@140, [also @Or. 28.64]

lW @ 549 35 5W@ 54736 37.9-10W @ 547 cf. 548

Pal@557

Pal@8

34 35 36

Widely known, e.g [Plut] reg. et imp. apoph. 207C, IG 14.2136. The Salamis, cited Pluto Solon 8.2. Cited Pluto Solon 18.5, Popl. 25.6, cf. Solon 25; [Ar.] Ath.Pol. 12.1.

23

24

EWENBOWIE

Aleman

Orn. Alcaeus

Archilochus

Pindar

18 20

01. 1.26-27@? 19 fro 75. 14-15 (Ditk. Athen. 2) @ 21 [also @ Or. 46.25] fro 76.2 (DitkJ1then. 3) @13 [also @401, Or. 8.21]

21

01. 1.26-27 & 49 @10

Py. 9.95 + ~ @36

112V@68 37

23

01.7.58-68?@50

24

112

25

V@6438

01.7.54-68 @29 01. 7.49-50 @ 30

26

fro 329@p9

27

fr.l08al (Hyporchemata) @2 [also @Or. 33.1] 30P@*51 106P & 148P @*54

28

37

01. 2.94-96 @55 fro 52£. 1-6 (Delph. Paean 6) @58 fro 194.1-3 & 4-6 @*57 fro 237 @*56

Also known from

~

Aes. Pers. 352 and Soph. O.T. 56, P. Berolin. 9569 (first century

Also known from

~

Aes. Pers. 352 and Soph. O.T. 56, P.Berolin. 9569 (first century

A.D.) 38

A.D.). 39

C£ ~ cod. Paris. 2995, Hermes 48 (1913) 319.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

Sappho

Simonides

Solon

25

Stesichorus

196V@440

5W@1441

193V at 51 (?= 89W2 @* 60 42 21 55,65 or 147) FGE@63 4338

FGE@*6345 FGE@ 64, also @ Or. 3.140-141]44 3.2-3FGE@6445 22a FGE @65 46 12 FGE [= Plut.de rna Hdt. 39, AP 7.250] @66 47 PMG 947a&b @67. 48 34.6-7W and 36.327W extensively @ 137-14049

IILaljYlh;LQov 'ta~ O\jJEL~: or is this a recollection of 3UI and lO5(a)? Cited Pluto Solon 18.5, Popl. 25.6, cf Solon 25; [Ar.] Ath.Pol. 12.1. 42 Line 2 = 28.6 FGE. 43 But Aristides cites a different pentameter from Lycurgus in Leoer. lO8-lO9: E'K'tELvav M~lIwv EVVEU ~uQLUl\a~ instead of XQuompoQwv M~lIwv EO'toQEoav Mva~Lv. For the problem, FGE, 225-231. 44 = AP 7.296= Diod. Sic. II.62.3. 45 = Hdt. 5.77-446 = Hdt. 7.228; cf Page 1981, 228. 47 Aristides offers two couplets following the single couplet in Plutarch and AP. 48 Stesichorus: Wilamowitz 1913, 150ff. with n. 3; Orsini and Bergk thought Simonidean, contra Boas 1905, 95. 49 Citing explicitly from the Tetrameters and from the Iamboi. 40 41

26

EWENBOWIE

Orn. Aleaeus

Aleman

Archiloehus

Pindar

30

01.9.27@16

31

fro 136a (?Threnoz) @*12

32

fro 129.7 (Threnoz) @34

33

fr.l08al-3 (Hyporchemata) @1 [also Or. 27.2]

34

01. 1.25, 44 @25 Py. 3.83 @8 fro 182 @* 5 fro 226 @*5

36

fro 201.1 @112 50

37

fr.146 51

38

?fr. 33e-d @12

39

01.7.7@16

40 56P@7

41

fro 99 @*6 fro 283 @?6

42

fro 95 @12 [also @Or. 3.191]

43

fro 35a@*30

44

?fr. 33c5 @ 14

45

01.3.11-14 & 26,52 01. 6.43 & 50 @3 01.6.99,7.44 @25 01. 8.47 @3 Py 6.11 @13Py 8.2, 9.39 @24 Py 9.39 @24 Py 9.68,12.1 @33 Isth, 3.70, Isth, 4.52 @3 fro 52 £.5-6 (Delphi Paean 6) @3 fro 52h (Delos Paean 7).13-14 or Isth, 8.62 @13 fro 150.1 @3 fr.dub 350-353 @*3 fr.dub 354-355 @*13

50 51

The first of three lines quoted by Strabo 17.1.19, 802C. Also P1ut. QC 1.2.4 (Mor. 617C), ~ THorn. Il. lOO.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

Sappho

Simonides

Solon

Stesichorus

528@*2

Pal @ 2=* fro 24lP

?36.15-16W @6

27

EWENBOWIE

Or n. Alcaeus

Aleman

Archilochus

Pindar

46

fro 75.14-15 (Ditk. Athen. 2) @ 25 [also @Or. 20.21]

50

01.2.1 @ 31 ?fr. 52.35 (Abdera Paean) @42 Is. 8.92 @45, cf Or. 45.13

52 For a list of Pindaric reminiscences in Oration 45 (arranged by section and including her own proposals, which I accept here) see Vassilaki 2005, 336-337.

ARISTIDES AND EARLY GREEK LYRIC, ELEGIAC AND IAMBIC POETRY

Sappho

Simonides

(ref. to Dioscuri story) 510P @36

Solon

Stesichorus

29

CHAPTER TWO

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES: SOME REMARKS ABOUT THE PANATHENAIC ORATION*

ESTELLE OunOT

'We did not choose the task of writing a jejune history, of narrating the deeds of the city (...). But we chose to mention its most famous actions in war, and as far as possible to omit none of the city's good qualities. This cannot be, if we discuss each point fully, but only if we omit no category of praise'. 1 This assertion comes in the middle of the Panathenaic Discourse of Aristides. If Plato is clearly, for this orator, the most debated author from the classical Greek past, as is clear from the three Discourses where he defends rhetoric-especially against the criticisms of the Gorgias2history too really falls into his field of thought. His relation to history was shaped by his rhetorical training which, especially thanks to the progymnasmata, gave him a very precise and deep knowledge of historians," above all Herodotus, Thucydides, Ephorus, Diodorus, and led him finally to write meletai like the Leuctran Orations and the Sicilian Orations:' I have chosen to focus this paper on the way Aristides reads, uses and rewrites the History of ThucydidesThucydides who, according to the rhetor, 'seems to excel by far the other writers of history not only in the power and dignity of his expression, but also in factual accuracy' (... o£ ou f.LOVOV 'tfi 'tWV Mywv bUVUf.LEL

• I should like to thank Professors Ruth Webb and William Harris for improving the English translation of this paper. 1 Panathenaic Oration 230; cf. also sect. 90. We follow the structure drawn up by F.W Lenz and CA. Behr (Leiden, 1976-1980). We generally follow Behr's translation, sometimes slightly changed. 2 Or. II (To Plato: in Difence ofOratory), Or. III (To Plato: in Defence cfthe Four); Or. IV (To Capit~. Pernot 1993b,322-327. 3 Nicolai 1992, 297-339. On the use of history in the progym:nasmata themselves. Bompaire 1976; Anderson 1993,47-51; Webb 2001, 301-303. 4 More exactly On Sending Reinforcements to Those in Sicil;y (pernot 1981). See for example Russell 1983, 112-115; Gasca 1992a and 1992b.

ESTElLE OUDOT

xul osuvomn, u'A.M xul 'tft 'twv :1tQuy!-t
Panathenaic Oration. 11 5 Or. III (To Plato: in Difence qf the Four). 20. Cf also section 23, on the reliability of the historian's portrait of Pericles: 'He reports this, not to press a personal quarrel, nor are all these references for the use of his argument, nor for a single proposition, but in his history and narrative he simply thus reports the truth, as when he narrates the invasion of the Peloponnesians or any other event of his time.' 6 C£ for instance Sacred Tales Iv. 14-15, one of the many occasions where the god Asclepios encourages Aristides to practice oratory: 'While I rested in Pergamum because of a divine summons and my supplication, I received from the god a command and exhortation not to abandon oratory. It is impossible to say through the length of time whatever dream came first, or the nature of each or the whole. It bifitsyou to speak in the manner qfSocrates, Demosthenes, and Thucydides... '. See, for example, Schmitz 1999. 7 Behr (1968,87-88 and 1994, §8) suggests the year AD 155,while Oliver (1968,3234) comes down to the year 167, basing his conviction both on Eleusis' destruction by the Costoboci in 170('the tone in which Aristides discusses the wars and festivalswould have been irritatingly false soon after the shocking sack of Eleusis', p. 33) and on the significance of the word VLKyJ which could reflect the military successes of Lucius Verus over the Parthians in 164-165. Follet (1976, 331--333) implicidy agrees with the overall argumentation of Oliver, but corrects the date to 168 (333n. 2): it must be an even year, given the changes in the calendar introduced by Hadrian. 8 Sections 75-321 (out of 404 sections) are devoted to historical deeds of Athens: mythical times (78--91), Persian Wars (92-209), wars in defence of the Greeks (210-227), Peloponnesian war (228--263), wars against the Greeks (264-313), war against Philip of Macedon (314-316), epilogue of the deeds performed in war (317-321). 9 Oudot 2006. 10 Pernot 1993b, 325. 11 Two scholars have investigated the historical sources of Aristides' Panathenaic Oration: Haury (1888), wishing to improve A. Haas' conclusions, according to which Aris-

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

33

But the reason why this particular discourse is to be studied is deeper. Indeed we may wonder how such an encomium of Athens, which is based on the continuity of the Athenian virtues, can deal with Thucydides' historical analysis describing the development of Athens' hegemony. How to deal with all the debates in Thucydides about the nature of Athenian aQX~? Moreover, this question cannot fail to take another element into account: in Thucydides' work, Pericles' funeral oration clearly serves as an archetype for Aristides-a text to which he alludes several times in his discourse." Pericles' oration is significant, first, by setting a topic and a division into three periods which Aristides takes up again and adapts. But above all, this is significant because, in some way, Pericles and Aristides intend to do the same thing-that is to explain Athens' excellence--in Pericles' case on the basis of the character ('CQO:ltOL) and the behaviour of the inhabitants," in Aristides' case on the basis of the original qJUOL~ which is embodied in the city's character and can be seen through its actions. In other words, both mean to explain the sense of the history of a city through its people's national character. So we read, on the one hand, of the controversial hegemony of Athens, which Thucydides deals with at length, on the other hand, a structural model for praise. Such are the two conflicting aspects of what the historian's work means for the Panathenaic Oration of Aristides. To begin with, I would like to consider sections 322-329, which represent a turning point in the oration." In general, we can note that tides would draw his historical knowledge only from the works of authors who have come down to us, concluded that Aristides' main source of information was Ephorusa conclusion which was convincingly disputed by Beecke 1905. 12 See for example the cutting remark in section 4, where Aristides, reviewing the writers who in the past claimed to speak properly of Athens, mentions the authors of funeral orations: ol /)f; EV 'tOL~ E:7tL'taljJLOL~ A.6Yo~ 'tWV aJ'to1'}aVOvtooV EvLou~ J'tQoOELQT]Xamv. Blot {)E ot xav 'to'lJ'to~, OUX ro~ VO!LL~E'tm, {)ul 'twv J'tQa;Eoov ~A1'}OV, aM' E'tEQav hQaJ'tovto, {)ELcravtE~, E!LOt {)OXELV, EM't'tou~ YEvEcr1'}m'twv J'tQaY!La'toov, oux E;oo !LEV nou cruYYVW!LTl~ Aa130vtE~ ljJo13ov, aM' o~v oiitrn J'tOAAOii 'tLVO~ EMTloav J'tEQt J'tav'toov yE 'twv uJ'taQXov'toov 'tfj J'tOAEL {)te;EA1'}ELv ('others, in their funeral orations, saluted some of the dead. And among these some did not carry their narrative through the deeds of the city as is customary, but went another way, in fear, as it seems to me, of being inferior to their theme, but in this way they were far from recounting all of the city's attributes'). C£ Thucydides 11.36.4: 'The military exploits whereby our several possessions were acquired, whether in any case it were we ourselves or our fathers that valiantly repelled the onset of war, Barbarian or Hellenic, 1 will not recall, for 1 have no desire to speak at length among those who know' (transl, C.F. Smith). 13 Thuc. 11.36.4. 14 See the structure of the discourse (a draft whose grounds are the kephalaia) in Pernot 1993b,324.

34

ESTElLE OUDOT

the speech is divided into two main parts---deeds in peacetime and deeds in wartime-which are both meant to illustrate the boundless philanthropia of the Athenian people. But now we come to a transition from this historical part to the praise of the Attic language. This passage is a real turning point in the oration, and certainly, as].H. Oliver said, 'the key passage of the whole oration':" Athens' superiority, as Aristides suddenly says, is not one of a historical kind, which would be based upon her political and military rule. Therefore, all that takes place before in the speech-namely the first two thirds of the discourseis, somehow, entirely erased. No, Athens' real superiority is actually based on her dialect, and on everything that is connected with the Attic tongue, that is eloquence, literature, education, a form of life «HaL'ta) and a set of specific values. This text is all the more interesting, in that it appears to be a real manifesto against Thucydides, and I would like to show that Aristides distinguishes himself from the historian on two levels. Firstly, the orator plans to define Athens' dunamis in contrast with Thucydides, and secondly, broadly speaking, while bringing history and encomium face to face, Aristides implicitly ponders over the right literary form to deal with Athens in the imperial era. In other words, how is Athens' memory to be dealt with within the Roman Empire? At section 322 Aristides explicitly puts an end to the strictly historical part of his work: And enough about these matters. But I shall not stop before I discuss a subject which, as far as we know, no one has mentioned up to this time in these public recitals of praise. 16 For it seems to me as it were improper to praise actions with speech and then to omit mentioning the part of speech itself (Kol ya.Q WO:n:EQ ou ttqJ.L'tov J-tOL qJULVE'taL A6yo~ 'to.\; :n:QU!;EL\; KOOJ-tOUV'tu 'tOU KU't' uu'tOU\; 'tOU\; A6you\; J-tEQOU\; :n:UQEAttELV 'tT]V J-tVELUV)Y You alone of mankind have erected 'a bloodless trophy' (UVULJ-tUK'tOV 'tQo:n:mov), as the expression goes, not by defeating the Boeotians, or Lacedaemonians, or Corinthians, ... but the whole human race---and you have won an honoured and great victory for all time, not like

Oliver 1968, 14. See sections 4-5 of the Proem where Aristides evokes the different kinds of works that failed to speak worthily of the city. 17 This sentence again echoes the Proem (section 2), where Aristides claims that there cannot be a more fitting way to honour Athens, which provides the right 'fostering of studies and oratory' ('tQoqJfj~ 'tfj~ m~ aA.T]i}cii~ Kui}UQa~ KUt [)LUqJEQ6v'tOJ~ avi}Qum:ou, 'tfj~ EV !!u'lh1!!um KUt MyOL~), than by using eloquence itself 15 16

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

35

the disputed battle at Tanagra.l" nor, by Zeus, like that at Marathon, which was an outstanding success, but a victory truly suited to mankind, continuous (w~ aAT]tl'oo~ 'tT]V :n:QE:n:ouauv avtl'Qwmp %UL I)LT]VE%i'j) ... For all the cities and the races of mankind turned to you and your form of life, and dialect ('i\:n:uam yaQ ut :n:OAEL~ %UL :n:av'ta 'to. 'tOOV avtl'Qw:n:wv yEVT] :n:Qo~ u!J.ii~ %UL 'tT]V U!J.E'tEQUV I)Lm'taV %UL qJWVT]V a:n:E%ALvE). [323] And the power of the city is not contained in the establishment of garrisons, but in the fact that all men of their own accord have chosen your ways and enrolled themselves as far as possible into the city, praying that their sons and they themselves may have a share in the beauty which is yours (%UL ou qJQOUQUL~ ey%utl'EmT]%ULm~ ~ MVU!J.L~ 'ti'j~ :n:OAEW~ auvEXE'tm, aAM :n:aV'twv eSE:n:hT]I)E~ 'to. U!J.E1:EQU TIQT]!J.EVWV %UL da:n:mouV'twv EUU'tOiJ~ w~ I)uvu'tov'tti :n:OAEL, auVEUXO!J.EVWV %UL :n:maL %UL EUU'tOL~ 'tOil :n:uQ' U!J.LV %UAoil !J.E'tUAU~ELV).

And a little further on he writes: [326] You Lacedaemonians and all other Greeks, I say that every day this proof of the city's victory is still confirmed by you yourselves and especially by the first men among you; they have abandoned their native dialects and would be ashamed to speak in the old way even among themselves with witnesses present. And all men have come to accept this dialect, in the belief that it is as it were a mark of education. [327] This I call the great empire of the Athenians, not two hundred triremes, or more, not Ionia, or the Hellespont, or the regions in Thrace, which have changed their rulers countless times (Tuu'tT]v eyw 'tT]V !J.EyaAT]V aQXT]v %UAOO 'tT]v 'Atl'T]VULWV, OU 'tQL~QEL~ I)LU%OaLU~ ~ :n:AELOU~ oM' 'lwvLuv, oM' 'EAA~a:n:oV'tov oMe 'to. e:n:L eQg%T]~,

a !J.UQLOU~ !J.E'tU~E~AT]%EV &QXoV'tu~).

According to Aristides, the real dunamis of Athens is by no means based on a geographically limited area, gained through a small-scale victory over three of her nearby neighbours. Her empire is not a military one, one which could be quantified through the number of triremes and which would be maintained by garrisons, an empire subject to changes (metabolaz) and, finally, a time-limited one. In fact, this picture is completely reversed: Athens' victory is no longer a limited one, but is now universal, both in time (it is permanent and unceasing) and in space (all peoples are concerned). Moreover this new kind of rule settled down peacefully-with 'bloodless trophies'-and acts upon the whole human race as a gravitational force does, without constraint. 18 C£ section 220. See Thuc. 1.107-109 and Diodorus XI.80.2-6. Haury based himself on the discrepancy between Aristides and Thucydides on the battle ofTanagra, among others, to state that the rhetor uses Ephorus (Haury 1888, 22). This thesis overlooks the conscious rewriting Aristides undertakes of Thucydides' historical work, which we attempt to demonstrate in this article.

ESTElLE OUDOT

In the perspective of this paper, what matters is the expression ~ MVUI1LI; 'tfjl; :n:aAEwl;, as it is used in section 329: 1\ll of your oratory in all of its forms and that which others have written in your tradition is excellent; and almost all orators, who have been fully successful among the Greeks, have been successful through the power of the Athenians' (UA:n:UV'tEI; M ol MyOL ~La. mrvnov 'tWV EL~WV ol :n:ug' UI1LV agLO'tOL xut oUI; ol :n:ug' UI1WV E:n:OLTJOUV, oXEMv ol ~La. :n:uV'tWV EV "EAATJOL VLXtlOUV'tEI;
of good'," Now in Pericles' oration, the power of Athens illustrates a definite Athenian virtue-audacity (tolrna): 'Nay rather you must daily fix your gaze upon the power of Athens ('tf]V 'tfjl; :n:6A.Ewl; MVUI1LV xul't' ~I1EgUV Egycp l'tEWI1EVO'UI;) and become lovers of her, and when the vision of her greatness has inspired you, reflect that all this has been acquired by men of courage ('tOAI1WV'tEI;) .. .'.23

19 Thuc. 11.41.2. Cf also 11.41.4 and 43.1, and besides, for example, 1.72.1; 1.93.3; I.II8.2; 1.121.3; 11.62·3; 11.64.3; 11.65·5; V.44·1; V.95· 1; VI·76.1; VI·92·5; VII-4 2.2; VII.77-7· 21 Thuc. 1.121.3. See also 11.62.2-3. 22 Thuc. 11.41423 Thuc. 11.43.1. C£ also 1.144.4: Pericles recalls to his fellow-citizens that their fathers 'by their resolution more than by good fortune and with a courage greater than their strength beat back the Barbarian and advanced our fortunes to their present state' (yvOOf.lTI re ltA.EOVL ~ 'tUXTI 'Kut 'tOA.f.lTI f.lE[~OVL ~ c'\lJVUf.lEL 'tOV re ~uQ~uQov UltEOOauV'to 'Kut E'; 'tUc'\E ltQo~yuyov uiJ'tu) (transl, C.F. Smith). 20

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

37

Boldness ('tOA.!J.u) is one of the main virtues praised by Pericles in his funeral oration. He dwells on the remarkable way his fellow citizens put this quality into practice. As their bravery ('to EihlJ1JXOV) is innate, they can be bold, while avoiding tiring physical training (Q<;t{}U!J.L<;t !J.UAAOV t) novcov !J.EAE-tU),24 living instead unconstrained (avEL!J.EvWl; ()LaL'tW!J.EVOL),25 because they are able to think and argue (AoyLO!J.ol;) and decide (XQLOLl;).26 Such a portrayal of the Athenians is both foretold and confirmed in the speech delivered by the Corinthians in front of the Spartan Apella in Book I-this text is well-known to Aristides, who quotes it verbatim in the second Leuctran Discourse," The Corinthians depict Athenian activism and vigour as dangerous to other peoples. Pericles' speech is thus mirrored in this famous antithetical presentation, where the Athenians are depicted in contrast with the idle and procrastinating Lacedaemonians. According to the Corinthian envoys, the Athenians are fundamentally aggressive and innovative (they are VEw'tEQonOLoL),28 they are prone to imagine new projects (EnLVOijOaL 01;ELl;)29 and highrisk actions, they are not reluctant to move (ano()1]!J.1]'tUL).30 And the Corinthians conclude thus: 'Therefore if a man should sum up and say that they were born neither to have peace themselves nor to let other men have it, he would simply speak the truth' (... wmE EL 'tLl; UU'tO'Ul; 1;UVEAWV qJUL1] nEqJuxEVaL Ent 't{fl !J.tl'tE UULOUl; EXELV ~OUXLUV !J.tl'tE LOUl; aAAoul; aV{}Qwnoul; Eav, OQ{}Wl; av dnOL),31 The issue at stake now is whether the new meaning of Athenian dunamis in the Panathenaic Oration (that is, the dunamis of the logoi, the cultural empire of Athens) corresponds to a new interpretation of the behaviour of the Athenian people." 24 Thuc. 11.390425 Thuc. 11.39.1. Cf. also 1.6.3. 26 On the development of Pericles' analysis through his discourses, cf. de Romilly 1947,9g-136. 27 Or. XI1.60. 28 Thuc. 1.70.; cf. also I.I02.3. 29 Ibid. 30 Thuc. 1.70.4. 31 Thuc. 1.70.9. See also the arguments used by the Corinthians to urge their allies to bring help to the Potidaeans: 'Vote for the war, not fearing the immediate danger, but coveting the more enduring peace which will result from the war. For peace is more firmly established when it follows war, but to refuse to go to war from a desire for tranquillity is by no means so free from danger' (1.124.2) (transl. C.F. Smith). 32 In the Panathenaic Oration, the Athenian people is generally viewed as one person, with a unity of character and endowed with a consistency both of acts and convic-

ESTElLE OUDOT

Boldness and bravery (av6QEtu, EU'IjJUXLu, xUQ'tEQLu, 'tOAJ-tU)33 can be found throughout Aristides' discourse, but these virtues are in a way always neutralised," for they are systematically linked with terms falling within the semantic field of kindness, clemency (emEtxELu),35 even temper (:n:Q<;lO'tTji;),36 piety (EU<Jl~~ELU),37 generosity (J-tEYUAO'IlruxLu),38 and justice (6LXaLOOUVTj).39 All these virtues are both crowned and summed up by philanthropia (a term which Thucydides does not use). In fact, in the whole Panathenaic Oration, the nature of the city and her inhabitants is twofold and, far from cancelling one another out, these two aspects complete each other in order to form a full and perfect wisdom (oorptc). I would like to consider, by way of illustration, the account of an event which took place during the year 48r Be, when the Athenians, in the congress at the Isthmus, yielded the naval leadership to the Peloponnesians: 'When the Athenians had shown such great enthusiasm for the safety of all men, and made such a great contribution to the common need, and were all-important (...), [they added] such even temper (:n:Qc;,xo'tTji;) and nobility (J-tEyuAo'IjJuXLu), so that they conceded to others a formal leadership, and did not argue the matter (...). How can such conduct fail to prove that they tions (for example, Pa:nathenaic Oration 308: 'It will be obvious that the Athenian people in their remarkable decisions has taken up the character of one man, the best one'lpuvt']aE'taL yaQ, IlEV 6LUlpEQOV'tW~ E~OllAEvau'to, EVO~ av6Qo~ ~ttEL XEXQT]IlEVO~ 'tou ~EA­ rtorou), In a general way, the city of Athens is endowed by Aristides with an ~tto~ (for example 138, 223) and a lpvau; (8-10, 15, and 255-when Athens had to face the maOLa: in the nature of mankind the city was diseased, but it was cured by its own nature; see also 301-306 ('t~v 'tWV 3tQUYlla'twv lpVOLV), 3II). 33 f\V6QEla: 81-82 (where Aristides says that he just showed 'proofs, chosen from ancient examples, both of courage and of generosity', 'tUll'tL IlEV ovv XOLVU 6ElYIlU'tU, 03tEQ E'GtOV, av6QEla~ rs XUL lpLl..avftQw3tlu~ 1J3tUQXE'tW 'tWV aQxulwv E!;ELAEYIlEVU), 107 (av6Quyuttla), 196, 203, 213, 222, 257, 345, 393· Ell1jJllXla: 89, 133, 134, 160, 244, 257· KUQ'tEQlu: 145, 154, 233, 317. TOAIlU and related terms: II4, 127, 133, 138, 159, 223, 250, 254, 256, 3 17. 34 See for instance sect. 89 (lpLAuvftQw3tlu and E1J'ljJllXlu), sect. 196 (the actions of the city are the 'demonstration of justice and true courage' ... 3tQo~ 6LXULOcrVVT]~ xUL 3tQo~ av6QELU~ E3tl6EL!;LV aAT]ttLvii~ ...); 213 ((}WIlT] and IlEyuAO'IVllXlu), 257 (E1J'ljJ1lXla and E3tLElxELU), 345 (av6QElu and lpLAuvttQw3tlu). 35 Sections 8, 81, 136, 257, 303, 308, 390, 392. This is precisely one of the three feelings, along with pity and delight in eloquence, identified by Thucydides' Cleon as being the most dangerous to Empire: see 111.40.2-3; Rengakos 1984, 58-65. 36 Sections 8, 137, 149, 372, 396. There is only one occurrence in Thucydides, in Iv.108.3, describing the Spartan Brasidas at Amphipolis. 37 Sections 154-155, 192, 372. 38 Sections 23, 67, 77, 92, 137, 142, 154, 179, 213. 39 Sections 45, 48, 81, 177, 195, 196, 227, 282, 293, 306--308, 313, 348, 361, 388.

a

AELIUS AR1STIDES AND THUCYDIDES

39

already possessed every kind of wisdom and were the best of all men ... ?' (137).40 Another example is provided by the way Aristides alters one of Thucydides' explanations of how the Athenian empire reached its highest point. In an answer to the Corinthians, the Athenians of Thucydides justify their power successively by reference to fear (MOI;), honour ('U!!tl) and later self-interest (wqJEALa)Y In the Panathenaic Oration, the Athenians, acting like a single man, likewise, 'have followed the imperatives of empire' ('rfi 'tfjl; uQXfjl; uxoAou{h1aal; uvuyxU), but as soon as possible they 'in generosity, have voluntarily dispensed with the fear of empire' (qJLA.avftQW:ltL~ be 'to 'tfjl; uQXT)1; ()E()OLXOI; EXWV !!EttElI;...) and behaved with the greatest equity and moderation toward all (:ltAELO'tcp 'tep XOLVep xat !!E'tQLCP :ltQOI; a:ltav'tal; XQT)au!!Evol;).42 Moreover, their military dunamis is even supplanted by a force of a different kind. After Athens' defeat before Syracuse, Aristides downplays the heavy losses of the Athenian army, speaking instead of a renewed force, consisting of a set of moral qualities: 'It was not like a city deprived of its power, but one which now had acquired more. The calmness of their behaviour, their moderation, and the disciplined life which they chose so as not to make any shameful concessions could not be convincingly described' (... Kat 't~v !!EV 'tQO:ltWV dixOALav xat aWqJQolJ'livT)V xat 'tUSLV ()LaL'tT)I;, ijv V:ltEQ

'to'u

!!T)()EV atOXQov auyxwQfjaaL :ltQOELAOV'tO, oM' av eLI; uSLWI; EIJtm).43

In fact, what is left of the portrait which Thucydides draws of the Athenians, in the Panathenaic Oration of Aristides? What has become of Pericles' fellow citizens?

40 See for instance sects. 174-176, 196, 213, and especially 252-256 (where Aristides makes use both o[,;oA.I-lu and OOOljlQOmJVIl to rewrite the episode of the Thirty in 404403BC-oudot 2003)' Cf also sects. 344-345: 'Consider also matters of warfare, the city's personal struggles, and those in defence of others; and again the successes at home and further those abroad, both in Greek and barbarian territory. And will you speak of the courage or the generosity which is inherent in the wars themselves? For just as all the segments of a single spring, no matter how many the parts into which you divide it, flow back to one another and are combined, so the wars fought through the need of those who asked for help and the advantages deriving from knowledge combine with the city's benefactions, and the city's activity on behalf of itself as those who asked for help combine with the wars'. 41 Thuc. 1.75.3and 76.2. 42 Panathenaic Oration 308 (drawing upon Thuc. 1.77.3-4). On this text see Sard 2006: the way in which Aristides deals with Melos and Skione is influenced by the portrait of the 'enemies of the Roman order' (MacMullen 1966). Aristides emphasizes the responsibility of the rebels and blames for their hubris 'those who made the action necessary' . 43 Panathenaic Oration 234.

40

ESTElLE OUDOT

The Athenians of the Panathenaic Oration are no longer the vigorous and conquering nation which is depicted in Thucydides' historical work. If the Athenian people is of course the most sharp-minded (o;{rtEQol;),44 Aristides immediately adds that this people is also the most even-tempered (:n:QUO'tEQOl;, sect. 396).45 And how could Aristides speak about the Athenians as an innovative people, when the whole oration emphasizes the permanence of their national character throughout their whole history? The word VEW'tEQO:n:OLOl; naturally does not appear, and Aristides even reverses an event reported by Thucydides in Book I. This event took place in 46SBC when the rebels on Ithome tried to rise up against Sparta. The historian relates how the Lacedemonians first called on the Athenians for help, but dismissed them at once, 'fearing their audacity and their revolutionary spirit ()eLOuV'tEl; 'tow 'A:61'JVULWV 'to 'tOA.I-"TjQov xut VEW'tEQO:n:OLLUV) ... They thought that if the Athenians remained, they might be persuaded by the rebels on Ithome to change sides' (1-"'1'] n, ilv :n:uQUI-"eLVWVOLV, u:n:o 'tow EV 'HhoI-"n :n:ELO'frEV'tEl; VEW'tEQLOWOL). Then Thucydides adds: 'It was in consequence of this expedition that a lack of harmony in the relations of the Lacedaemonians and the Athenians first became manifest'.46 Aristides, however, relates this event in a completely different way and rewrites Thucydides' text: we are told that the reason why the Lacedaemonians no longer fear the rebels on Ithome is that the ~thenian people were present under arms, confident in their courage and fearful for the Lacedaemonians as if for their own safety... This action put an end to the current fears of Lacedaemonia, and enabled the Lacedaemonians later to punish the Perioeci' Y 44 The rhetor is well acquainted with the Thucydidean portrait of the Athenians as an active people which rejects every kind of idleness or inertia (Thuc. 1.70 and 11-40), as we can read in Or. XII, one of the Leuctran Orations: 'There is an old saying that you (sc. the Athenians) are the quickest of all to decide upon and to carry out what is best. And this is clear both from your decrees and from the contests in which you have always engaged. And you alone, as I believe, have a law which has provided an indictment for inertia, so that no one may indulge in untimely idleness or neglect, or call slothfulness a case of minding one's own business' (XII. 60). 45 Panathenaic Oration 396; see also section 348: 'And I shall add, the wisest, cleverest, soundest, and most just generals also are from this city ... ' (:n:Qocrlh]ow I'lE lIui :n:uQa. 't'ij(1)e lIui
AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

Finally, Aristides agrees that the Athenians are unable to be calm, just as in Thucydides' history, but according to him this is not 'because they regard untroubled peace as a far greater calamity than laborious activity', but on the contrary because they care for general peace: 'Athens realized that the Greeks had no safety and security (uacpuAELuV xut aw'tTlQLuV) if it should shut them up and keep them at home, or if it should ask nothing of them, or they should do nothing in their own behalf But if they should drive the barbarians as far as possible from Greece, in this way Athens thought that all would have the best and fullest peace (oihw~ qlE'tO UQLO'tTjV xut xutl'uQav ~aux.Luv a:7tUOLV eawtl'm), and it judged well and with a regard for how matters stood. For it is generally true that they alone are most fully at peace who show that they do not desire to remain entirely at peace' (f,tOVOL yaQ O)(.EMv O-o'tOL xutl'uQw~ ~aux.u~ouOLV, OL'tLVE~ o.v ()EL;WOL f,t1) :7tuV'tw~ ~aux.Luv ayELv ()EOf,tEVOL).48 It is natural therefore that Aristides' narrative of the Pentakontaetia period and the Peloponnesian War is strongly opposed to the historian's. The Athens of Aristides never appears aggressive or repressive; it never acts out of revenge. Thus Athens is reluctant to intervene militarily against the Greeks, although they are both ungrateful and jealous of her 'extraordinary actions'. It only tries to keep their rebellion under control ('tq> XLVOUf,tEVOU~ XU'tUO)(.EtV) and, when compelled to wage war against them ('tq> :7tOAEf,tElV uvuyxuatl'Elau), 'seeks no advantage when she is victorious' (O'tE EVLXTjaE, f,tTj()Ev :7tAEOV ~Tj'tfJam).49 Such is the overall pattern of the relations between Athens and its allies throughout Aristides' celebration of the city. Athens is above all a nation that helps victims and when the orator cannot avoid speaking of Athenian attacks, he explains that the city's behaviour is beyond the simple dichotomy between attacker and defender, since it is able to invent a new kind of war ('tQhov :7tOAEf,tOU O)(.fJf,tU):50 'a counter-attack against those who first plotted hostilities, with the freedom of action of the aggressor and the just cause of the Panathenaic Oration 197. Panathenaic Oration 228. C£ also a litde before, sect. 225: 'It presented one piece of evidence as an equal proof of its superiority both in war and in native goodness, its belief drat it must wage total war against the barbarians, but against the Greeks must fight simply to the point of attaining superiority'. 50 Panathenaic Oration 194. See, on the opposite, Thuc. 11.36.4, where Pericles clearly mentions two kinds of wars, the one waged to acquire possessions, and the others waged to repel attacks. 48 49

ESTElLE OUDOT

defender' (ro 'WLI; :1t:QO'tEQOLI; E:1t:L~OVAEUOaOLV UV'tE:1t:EA.{tEi:V alJ'tOUI;, EAEVtl'EQL<;1 J.LEv 'tft 'tWV uQ)(.6V'twv, chxmooUvTI 6E 'tft 'tWV UJ.LVVOJ.LEVWV XQWJ.LEVOVI;).51 Aristides even goes a step further. Paradoxically, Athens in the Panathenaic Oration uses wars to give advice about peace and concord, because she constantly acts out of philanthropia. 52 In fact, that is precisely how she is a true model (paradeigma) for others. Consider for example how Aristides deals with the government of the Thirty Tyrants and the return of the democrats." This text is particularly significant, because it presents Athens' deeds as part of a pattern of behaviour. Aristides here praises Athens for the specific way she overcame the crisis and got out of these times of troubles by decreeing the amnesty: 'She not only bore more gracefully her defeats in war than others their successes, but she also settled her troubles at home in such a way that all mankind had a definition of moderation (oQov oWqJQooUVTjI;) and no one later could discover a better arrangement than theirs'.54 As a proof both of moderation and daring (aJ.La oWqJQOOUVTjI; rs xat 'tOAJ.LTjI;... ()ELYJ.Lam),55 Aristides reports as an extraordinary fact that 'when they had struggled against those in the city, and had opposed the Lacedaemonians, and held the Piraeus (...), the assembled democrats at once came ready for battle and almost at the same time to make terms, as if each side were going to wage war on behalf of one another, and not themselves alone'.56 What follows in Aristides' text recalls Pericles' funeral 51 Panatlzenaic Oration 195. See also sect. 318: 'The city has waged four kinds of war, to define them generically: its own personal wars; wars on behalf of the general welfare of Greece; wars on behalf of those who in particular desired aid; and among those who desired aid are people by whom the city had been wronged and against whose former conduct it could complain'. 52 Gasca 1992 . 53 See also the discrepancy between Thucydides and Aristides in the accounts they give of the Sphacteria episode. According to the orator (sect. 277), 'the city made peace and sent back the Lacedaemonians, whom it had captured, without harming them, as if it were enough to have conquered in virtue (... W<J:1tEQ uQxouv uQE"tfi VEVLXTjXEvm). But those of the Lacedaemonians who were in the Hellespont (...) slaughtered on the spot the Athenians whom they had captured by the ruse of the naval batde-and I say no more-, although they had an example from home of the city's behaviour toward unfortunates (...xaL "tau"ta UltUQX0V1:01; "tou ltaQa()ELy~a"t01; au"toi£; OLXO'frEV, OLa ltEQL "tOi!l; ()u
AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

43

oration: 'Indeed', Aristides says, mentioning the money the Lacedaemonians lent to the Thirty, 'we could not discuss the internal affairs of the Lacedaemonians. For they kept these concealed. 57 But the city, beside arranging its own affairs in this way in the presence of many witnesses, also became a model for other people'," that is to say the famous paradeigma to which Pericles alludes in II.37.!. This then enables Aristides to show the Athenian model spreading abroad and the city teaching its own history as an example of homonoia: 'Later she cured by her actions and counsel the masses of the Argives when they were sick with faction. For she reconciled them by sending to them and reminding them of her own history'. 59 'Clearly the Athenians alone among all have administered both the private and the public affairs of the Greeks. For they not only thought that they must save the Greeks from their enemies, but also that they must reconcile them when they were sick with faction at home'. 60 We must of course read this work within the contemporary political framework of the Roman Empire. Through Athens' history, Aristides offers two patterns of political behaviour. On the one hand, he uses the city as a paradigm of the perfect ruling power, a power which avoids being aggressive, but works through gentle attraction.s'Athens cares for general freedom and peace, as the Romans do in the Roman

this point offortune, that the popular party went off in exile because of the faction, then they were in the worst condition. Again when upon the return of that party they voted an amnesty, they enjoyed the best reputation and once more were almost as they were in the beginning'. 57 C£ Thuc. 11.39.I. 58 Panathenaic Oration 260: Kal!-l~v AmtE/)aL!-lOVLOL !-lEv oJtw~ W!-lo..ouv aM~AOL~ oux uv EXOL!-lEV El.:n:ELV· EXQUJt1;OV YUQ' ~ I)E JtOA~ JtQo~ 'tip 'ta mpE'tEQa au'tii~ oihw i}EO'fraL !-lE'ta JtOMIDV !-laQ'tuQwv xal 'to~ UAAO~ JtaQu/)ELY!-la xa'tEO'tI']. 59 Panathenaic Oration 261: To youv ~QyElwv JtAiii}o~ vooonv UO'tEQOV taaa'tO xal EQYcp xal Mycp. IIE!-l\jJaaa yaQ w~ au'tou~ xal ilJto!-lv~aaaa 'tIDV Eau'tfj~ /)L~AAal;E. This allusion remains obscure, but Aristides may refer here (as later in section 271 and in Or. XXIY.27) to what is called the clubbing of aristocrats at Argos by the mob, which took place in 370. On these events, see Diodorus XV.57.3 - 58 and Plutarch, Precepts of Statecrafl 814B. 60 Panathenaic Oration 262: aLvoV'taL 'tOLVUV o!-lolw~ 'tu re OLXELa xal 'ta XOLVa 'tIDV 'EM~VWV JtoAL'tEuaU!-lEVOL !-lOVOL 'tIDV UAAWV. Tou~ re yaQ "EAAT]Va~ ou !-lOVOV EX 'tIDV JtOAE!-lLWV .poV'to /)ELV QUEO'fraL, aMa xal voaouV'ta~ EV ail'tOL~ aJtaMu't'tELV, au'tOL'tE xal JtQo~ 'tou~ El;w JtOAE!-lOU~ xal JtQo~ 'ta~ OLXOL /)uaxoAla~ JtaQEaxEUaa!-lEVOL XQELTIOV EAJtL/)o~ EWQIDV'tO. 61 For example Panathenaic Oration 56 (cf. Thuc. 1.2.6). Compare Roman Oration 60-61 ('All come together as into a common civic center, in order to receive each man his due').

44

ESTElLE OUDOT

Oration:" But on the other hand, for the rhetor, Athens is also the model of the Greek subject city within the Empire, because it is able to cure its domestic troubles and therefore Roman forces do not have to be brought in. This means that Aristides here, leaving Thucydides aside, meets Plutarch, particularly his Precepts qf Statecraft. In this work, Plutarch gives the young Menemachos advice about the way to keep his city peaceful and obedient: the officials in the cities must not 'foolishly urge the people to imitate the deeds, ideals and actions of their ancestors', if they are 'unsuitable to the present times and conditions' (8I¢). But, as Plutarch says, 'there are many acts of the Greeks offormer times by recounting which the statesman can mould and correct the characters of our contemporaries, for example, at Athens by calling to mind, not deeds in war, but such things as the decree of amnesty after the downfall of the Thirty Tyrants' (and, as another example) 'how; when they heard of the clubbing at Argos, in which the Argives killed fifteen hundred of their own citizens, they decreed that an expiatory sacrifice be carried about in the assembly' (8I4B). Thus, to come back to Thucydides, we see that Aristides reverses the historical picture of Athens in two ways. Firstly, its real power resides in its language and culture and, secondly, when Aristides deals with its 'hegemonic' past, Athens is put forward as a model of concord. And therefore we may, I think, to some extent imagine the Panathenaic Oration as a reply to Thucydides' historical work. This seems all the more likely when we consider another way in which Aristides takes a different stand from that of Thucydides. To illustrate this, I would like to come back briefly to the text with which I began this paper. According to Aristides, earlier encomia of Athens were a failure, because, whereas orators praised 'actions with speech' (A6yOL£ ,;a£ JtgaSEL£ xocuouvrc), they omitted mentioning the topic of speech itself." Pericles, in the funeral oration, is not concerned-at least, not at first sight-with the praise of Athens' oratory. Indeed, he begins by asserting the inferiority of words (logoz) compared to actions (erga). According to him, what counts is that the glory of the celebrated men is based on two external criteria: the orator's ability to speak and the knowledge and wishes of the audience." This is not the place, of 62 C£ for instance Panathenaic Oration 227 (contra: Thuc. 111.10.3-6) and the Roman Oration, especially 6g-71; 97; 103. 63 Panathenaic Oration 322. Cf also section 2. 64 11.35. 2 •

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

45

course, to examine the very subtle use Pericles makes of this opposition throughout his oration before finally dismissing it. But what matters is that Aristides, here too, makes a complete reversal: by asserting that the power of Athens lies in her logoi (her language, her literature, her culture), he goes beyond Pericles' position. The logos now represents the best deed (ergon) of Athens and it is precisely this that he plans to celebrate. From now on, there exists the perfect identity between form and subject which Pericles longed for. And thus a part of the prooemium of the Panathenaic Oration becomes clearer: 'It is reasonable to present here a speech on this subject and to honour the city in a fitting way. For it has chanced that other means of showing gratitude are just, yet not directly proper to the matter, but that this alone can be called a genuine means of expressing thanks for your kindness. For the expression of thanks for oratory delivered by means of oratory is right in itself but also first of all confirms the name given to this kind of speech. For it alone is, in the literal sense, the eulogy' ('H yaQ imEQ Mywv MyQ.l YLYVOf.tEVTj XUQL~ ou f.tOVOV 'to OLxmov eXEL f.tE'fr' EU'lJ'tfi~, aAM xat 't~v a:7to 'tov Myo'lJ :7tQ6nov E:7tWV'Uf.tLUV ~E~moi:' f.tOVTj YUQ EO'tLV aXQL~w~ EVAOYO~). 65

Thus oratory is really revalued against history. According to Aristides, history is not relevant when dealing with Athens. Indeed it is unequal to what is essential in Athens' soul, because, according to the rhetor, it is only concerned with the accurate narrative of actions." In fact true accuracy (axQL~ELU) is reached by making a selection from among the deeds of the past and by choosing those which are suitable to illustrate a quality peculiar to the object. The main thing is to 'omit no category of praise' (f.tTjOEv doo~ EUqJTjf.tLU~ :7tuQuAd:7tELV)Y 65 Panathenaic Oration 2. See also sect. 329: 'As if nature had foreseen from the start how far in its actions the city would excel all the others, it created for it an oratory of commensurate value, so that it might be praised by means of its own advantages .. .' (XU'tElJ%EUliou'tO uu'tfi :n:Qor; u!;lav 'to'ur; Myour;, tVU uu'ti] re xoouotro u:n:o 'twv euu'ti'jr; uym'}wv...). Loraux 1993, 268-269; Cassin 199166 See for example sect. 229: 'Further, as we have said, we did not choose the task of writing a jejune history, of narrating the deeds of the city (ou auYYQucpi'jr; EQYOV 'Il'LAi'jr; :n:QOELAOIlEftu uqJllYELai}m 'tu :n:E:n:QUYIlEVU 'tfi :n:OA.EL), for even that speech would extend into the following penteterid. But we chose to mention its most famous actions in war, and as far as possible to omit none of the city's good qualities (uMu'twv IlEv xu'tU 'to'ur; :n:OAEIlOUr; :n:QU!;ElllV 'tur; YVlllQLlllll'tU'tUr; El.1tELV, 'tWV b' u:n:UQX0V1:111V uyuftwv 'tfj :n:OAEL, xuft' OOOV buvu'tov, Illll)Ev :n:UQUAI.1tELV). This cannot be, ifwe discuss each point fully, but only if we omit no category of praise' (Tuii'tu b' EmLV oux o.v btU :n:UV1:111V Exumu AEYlllIlEV, uM' o.v IlllbEv E1'Ior; EUCPlllllar; :n:UQUAEl.n:lllIlEV).

67

Panathenaic Oration 229.

ESTElLE OUDOT

So oratory alone has the legitimacy to speak about Athens, and Aristides, on this point too, wants to reply to Thucydides. As the historian says, it is impossible 'as to the events of a still earlier date' (than the Persian wars) to get 'clear information on account of lapse of time' (aa :7tLO'tEiiam).69 Thucydides accordingly dismisses the poets and logographoi-a term Aristides could apply to himself-who have composed accounts 'with a view rather of pleasing the ear than of telling the truth' (e:n:l 'to :n:Qoauywyo'tEQOV 'tfi uXQouaEL ~ UATJ'frEO'tEQOV).7 o Thucydides wants his historical method to be 'adjudged profitable' (WqJEALI-tU XQLVELV) and not thought of as 'a prize-essay to be heard for the moment' (uywvLal-tU el; 'to :n:uQUXQfjl-tu UXOVELV).7 1 The Panathenaic Oration of Aristides attempts to reply to these two main points. First, it is because the beginnings of the city are not clear or easily comprehensible that Aristides can make use of the topos that he does not know where to begin. 72 Furthermore, speaking about Athens, Aristides aims at pleasing the ear as well as telling the truth. In other words, he plans to reconcile the two criteria which Thucydides contrasted. That is what he explains in a text which is part of what is called the 'second prooemium' within the long account of the Persian wars." Here Aristides clearly plays with Thucydides' words: 'I see indeed that my speech is becoming long and that it is no longer easy after what has already been said to speak to please or to win my audience (ou Q<;l<'lLOV QV :n:QOl; TJ<'lOVf]V 01hE uu'tOV ihL ElJtELV 01hE 'tUXELV uxouovrwv), just like a second contestant who enters after the first has distinguished himself However, I did not undertake these arguments to entertain (ou 'ljJuXUYWYLal; XUQLV), but to show truthfully the worth of the city (I-tE'ta UATJ'frelul; 'tf]V 'tfjl; :n:OAEWl; U~LUV), so that I shall do more wrong by slackening than I shall cause annoyance by speaking'." The word uYWVLO'tT]l; clearly recalls the Thucydidean word uywVLl-taU, just as 'ljJUXUyWyLU recalls 'to :n:Qoauywyo'tEQOV. In this way he 68 Thuc. 1.1.2. 69 Thuc. 1.20.1. Marincola 1997, 95-117 (esp. 95--g7). 70

71 72 73 74

Thuc. 1.21.1. Thuc. 1.22.4. Panathenaic Oration 7. Panathenaic Oration 185-188. Panathenaic Oration 185.

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

47

rehabilitates the Athenians, whom Thucydides' Cleon had described as 'overcome by the pleasure of hearing, like the audience of the sophists' (... uxoi'j\; ~6ovfj ~aaw!-tEvOL xaL oorpurrdrv 'frEa'taL\; EOLXO'tE\;).75

Thus Aristides' Panathenaic Oration attempts a double reversal ofThucydides' work: imperial Athens of the fifth century-which is depicted by the historian as an increasing power-is now the model of a pacifism aimed at universal concord. The Panathenaic Oration offers the structured vision of the relations between the ruling power and the ruled cities, which is precisely the one promoted by Rome. Besides, while offering a new definition of Athens' dunamis, Aristides first excludes Athens from history, using the empire described by Thucydides as a metaphor. Being an essence, Athens exists before coming into historical times. In fact for Aristides Athens has no beginnings: because it is by herself an uQX~, it serves as a first principle." Therefore the history of Athens cannot be a chronological one, for its function is to illustrate values which always recur and are continuously confirmed. Thus it is not surprising that Aristides does not mention any evolution in Athens' supremacy-neither decline nor progress. And when the city, in the Panathenaic Oration, finally comes into the historical frame, Aristides makes clear that this chronology is provided by Rome, presented as the last of the five world empires: 'Under the empire at present existing, which is in every way the best and greatest, Athens has precedence over all the Greek race, and has fared in such a way that no one would readily wish for its old state instead of its present one' ('E:JtL M 'ti'j\; :JtClv'ta UQLO't11\; xaL !-tEYLO't11\; 'ti'j\; VUVL xa'frEO't11xULa\; 'tu :JtQEO~Ei:a :Jtav'to\; EXEL 'tau 'EAA11VLXOU xaL :JtE:JtQaYEv olhw\;, roO'tE !-ttl QQ.6LW\; av 'tLva aiJ'tfj 'tuQxaLa UV'tL'tWV :JtaQov'twv O1JVE";aa'frm).77 Therefore, in the

unit made up of the Panathenaic Oration and the Roman Oration, Aristides works out an overall view: Athens' history is now fixed as a logical whole and her values are to be 'historicized' by Rome. In the Roman Oration, Greeks are shown as foster-fathers, whom the Romans take

75 Thuc.11.38.7. 76 Oudot 2006. 77 Panathenaic Oration 335. See also section 332: 'The present empire of both land and sea-and may it be immortal-is not unwilling to adorn Athens as a teacher and fosterfather, but so great are its honours that now the only difference in the city's condition is that it does not engage in serious affairs (ou 3tQUYJ,lUTEUETaL). But for the rest, it is almost as fortunate as in those times when it held the empire of Greece, in respect to revenues, precedence, and the privileges conceded by all'.

ESTElLE OUDOT

good care 0£78 But meanwhile they take over from the Greeks, putting into practice the very values brought forward by the Athenians of the Panathenaic Oration. There is one last issue I would like to emphasize briefly. From a more general viewpoint, the Panathenaic Oration is likely to be read as one of those works of the Second Sophistic period that meditate on the most suitable literary form to deal with Athens. Thus, in some ways, Aristides' thought comes close to Strabo's own questions about the right way to describe the space and the stones of Athens. In Book 9 of his Geograplry, he states that the city cannot be depicted because she is too famous and too celebrated (u!1vou!1evwv re 'Kat ()La~OW!1evwv). He is therefore afraid of making a real digression (E'K:7teoELV 'tfj~ :7tQotl'eoEw~). 79 The Acropolis, he says, needs either the mention of one of its monuments or the exhaustive description made by a periegete, but in no case a geographical account." Later, Dionysius Periegetes, in his Description ofthe T#Jrld, even brings this picture to the highest point of abstraction. For a topographical or architectural mention, he substitutes a literary locus." referring to the discussion between Socrates and Phaedrus, and more exactly to the mythological event which, in Plato's dialogue, prompts the discussion of the respective powers of talking and writing," Athens is no longer a geographical place, but a weighty cultural reference. And Plutarch's declamation upon the glory of Athens," questioning whether the city's fame is due to her statesmen and generals or to her historians, poets or orators, also comes into this discussion. Through the Panathenaic Oration, both by itself and in connection with the Roman Oration, Aristides takes part in the hotly debated question of Athens' essence. For him, the city's identity is now purely a cultural one and her past is now a rhetorical matter. Thus historiography's hegemony falls away, as if it were no longer of any use. The true mirror of Athens is not that of the historian any longer-and Roman Oration 96. See, for example, Swain 1996, 274---284; Pernot 1997,33-40. IX.I.I6 C396: 'However, if I once began to describe the multitude of things in this city that are lauded and proclaimed far and wide, I fear that I should go too far, and that my work would depart from the purpose I have in view' ('Allu YUQ Et~ JtAii{}o~ 78

79

E~Jti.m:OlV

TWV JtEQL Tii~

JtOAEOl~ TUUTT]~ U~V01J~EVOlV

~~ lJ1J~~fi Tii~ JtQO{}ElJEOl~

TE ltULIlLU~OOl~EVOlV OltVW EltJtElJELV ~v YQuqJT]v) (transl. H.L. Jones).

JtAEova~ELv,

Ibid. Namely the Ilissos river 'where Boreas carried offOreithyia' (v. 423-425). 82 Oudot 2004. 83 On the Fame of the Athenians (IIoTEQov 'A~VULOL ltUTU JtOAE~OV ~ ltUTU lJOqJLUV EV1l0;6TEQOL) (345C-351C). 80

81

AELIUS ARISTIDES AND THUCYDIDES

49

there, Aristides may address the contemporary issue about the worth of the relationship between history and rhetorical praise" which is reflected in Lucian's treatise How to Write History. In the part of the treatise devoted to advice, after recalling Thucydides' famous assertions" and setting the historian's concern against the orator's, Lucian describes the ideal historian's mind through a striking comparison: 'Let him bring a mind like a mirror (... xa't6:lt'tQq> EOLxu'iav :ltaQaoxecrf}w 't~v yVW!1TJv...), clear, gleaming-bright, accurately centred, displaying the shape of things just as he receives them, free from distortion, false colouring, and misrepresentation'. 86 Aristides uses the same image at the end of the Panathenaic Oration, but now the mirror which is perfectly suitable to Athens is of course eloquence itself: 'Men anywhere on earth must of necessity think of oratory and of the Athenians simultaneously and they would never expel from their soul the city's image (xat !1TJMnors Ex~aAEi:v av EX 'tii~ '¢ux.ii~ 'to EL()WAOV, WO:ltEQ EV xa't6:lt'tQq> 'to'i~ A.6YOL~ E!1~A.E:ltOv'ta~), perceiving it in oratory as it were in a mirror'."

See for example Marincola 1997, 75-76; Zimmermann 1999; Pernot 2oo5c. How to Write History 42: 'Thucydides says he is writing a possession for evermore rather than a prize-essay for the occasion, that he does not welcome fiction but is leaving to posterity the true account of what happened. He brings in, too, the question of usefulness and what is, surely, the purpose of sound history: that if ever again men find themselves in a like situation they may be able, he says, from a consideration of the records of the past to handle rightly what now confronts them' (transl. Kilburn). 86 How to Write History 50 (transl. Kilburn). 87 Panathenaic Oration 397. 84 85

CHAPTER THREE

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

SUZANNE SAiD

An exhaustive study of Aristides' mythology' would require a full book, such as S. Gotteland's Mythe et rhetorique on the mythical examples in Attic orators or A. GanglofPs Dion Chrysostome et les mythes. For myths appear not only in full narratives but also in passing allusions, comparisons, examples. They may be criticized or interpreted allegorically. They serve as mere ornaments or may be drastically recast to suit the needs of the time. In this paper, I will only be content with merely giving some sense of Aristides' various ways of handling myths. I start with an examination of the occurrences of muthos, muthologema, mutheomai and muthodes, which suggest a rather critical attitude towards mythology. Then I focus on the Heracles myth, distinguishing between its rhetorical uses and the transformation of its content according to imperial ideology. This myth is indeed the most prominent in Aristides' speeches. Heracles is not only celebrated in a hymn, he also appears in other settings: hymns celebrating other gods (Athena, the sons of Asclepios, Sarapis) or sanctuaries (Eleusis), the panegyric of Athens and the celebration of the reconstruction of Smyrna, meletai (Orations 5 to 16: OnMaking Peace with the Athenians [8], 70 the Thebans [9 and 10], Leuctrian Speeches [II and 12]), sumbouleutic speeches (70 the Cities on Concord), self-defense (Concerning a Remark in Passing [28]), and a scathing attack (Against those who Burlesque the Mysteries ifEloquence [34]). This exceptional presence may be explained not only by the popularity of the hero in the Greek world, but also by his place in imperial propaganda. In the kingship speeches of Dio, the appeals to the precedent of Heracles have justly been regarded as complimentary to Trajan, who made him into his favorite hero." This may also be the case for Aristides, since the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius was also fond of the hero and On Aristides and myths, see Pernot 1993a, II, 762-772. Durry 1938, 108, Desideri 1978, 356 n. 61,Jones 1978, II7-II8,Jaczynowska 1981, 636; Moles 1983, 270, Moles 1990, 323 n. 86. 1

2

SUZANNE SAID

had himself portrayed as Heracles." To conclude, I analyze Aristides' rewriting of the Prometheus myth. For it provides the best illustration of an ideological recycling of a classical myth.

I. Muthos In Aristides' speeches muthos is not always the antonym of logos.' The two words may be associated.' It is not only used for what we call 'myths' such as 'the tale of the Pamphylian Er' and the myth of the Gorgias,6 but also for fables? or reports of impossible phenomena by a geographer such as the Massalian Euthymenes," reports which are like 'the tales told by the nurses to their children when it is bedtime." 'Myth' may be praised as a cryptic discourse that prevents the uninitiated from understanding a sacred truth.'? But usually Aristides uses muthos, muthologema, and muthodes in order to remind his audience that the characters" or the events" which he mentions are 'fabulous' or 'wonderful'." He contrasts the making of 'myths', that is the stories concerning the gods, with the narratives of human deeds and wars." Like the historians, he may also use muthos in opposition to history. In the Panathenaic Oration he opposes 'the Erichthonii, the Cecropes', that is 'the fabulous element (-ta f.Lut}w6T])' to 'the trophies on land and sea', that is to historical victories." In the Letter to the Emperors concerning Lenz 1964, 228. E.g. 4. 23: mutlws is the equivalent of logos. 5 21.$ 36.9$ 46. 17. 6 26.69 and 2.348. 7 34.3. 8 36.85' 9 36.96. 10 28.II3. In the Hymn to DioT£YsOS the story of Dionysos bringing Hephaistos up to heaven is interpreted as a 'riddle' (U'LvLyItU) whose point is clear: 'that the power of the gods is great and invincible, and that he could give wings even to asses, not only to horses' (4I.7). 11 The Phaeacians (25. 40) or the Gorgon (1. 128), lasos, Kriasos, Crotonos and Phoroneus (2.7). 12 27.18: the tale (ltui}oAOYTlItU) about the Trojan wall; 21.5: the tale (ltiii}ov) about the Theban wall; 25.29: the tales (ItUi}OAOYliItU"tU) about the birth of Rhodes raised by the gods as a gift to the Sun; 2.207: the tale (ltiii}o~) of the Sown-men. 13 22.2. 14 45-415 1.354. 3 4

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

53

Smyrna, he distinguishes between Theseus, the mythical founder of Smyrna, and its historical founders, Lysimachus and Alexander," In the Eleusinian Oration, he sets the return of the Heraclidae as the beginning of historical times, when he opposes 'the things which go back to myth' to 'what happened later on, after the Heraclidae have returned to the Peloponnesus'," as did Ephorus, who began his universal history with the return of the Heraclidae." In the second Smyrnean Oration,19 after comparing what happened to Smyrna, which, once destroyed, is now superior to itself, to what happened to Pelops, who, once taken from the cauldron and put together anew; became even more beautiful, he completes the mythical simile with another one, which must be believed since it belongs to history, for Athens, after its destruction by the Persians, became even larger and 'expanded on every side'. In agreement with rhetorical treatises," Aristides often indicates his distancing from the myths by introducing them with 8 ()~ lpaOL,21 MyO'UOLv,22 MYE'taL,23 f.L'Ul'toAoyOUOL,24 or W~ Myo~.25 But once he validates a 'myth' by quoting the poets as reliable witnesses and pointing out their consensus.P In the Panathenaic Oration, he dismisses with the adjective muthodes the most ancient Athenians myths." In his speech 70 Plato in Difense if Oratory, he not only puts the tale of the Sown-men into inverted commas ('just as they say the Sown-men did'), he also adds a skeptical comment, 'if the myth hints at this'," and then introduces the myth of Prometheus by way of an excuse: 'if a myth must be told'.29 Even in the hymns, where myths are a given in the pars epica, Aris-

19-422.4-5: xul 'til !-lEv d~ !-lu'frou~ avf]xoV'tu 'tOLUU'tU. 'til II' UO'tEQOV 'HQuxAELllwv d~ IIEA01tOVV1]OOV XU'tEA'frOV'tOOV. 18 Diod.Sic. 4.1.3. 19 21.l(}-II: !-lV1JO''!h100!-lm II' ELXOVO~ ou !-lu'frcbllou~. aAA' avuyxuLU~ 1tLO'tEUom. 20 Menander Rhetor I. 339, 2-IO, and Ps-Aristid. Rhet. 2. 13. I 1tEQl'twv !-lu'froollwv. OUl( IhL l\yEvEm. aM' on AEyE'tm yEvEa'frm. See johrens 1981, 52, and Pernot 1993a, II, 763 n. 189. 21 37.3; 38.12; 40.2; 41.4. 22 41.6,8. 23 1.87;37.9; 14;38.IO. 24 34.59; cf johrens 1981,52. 25 38.II; 41.1. 26 46.7-8. 27 1.354: 'The Erichthonii, the Cecropes, the fabulous stories ('til !-lu'frwll1]), the sharing of the crops'. 28 2.207: EL c'iQu xul 6 !-lu'fro~ mum uLvL't'tE'tm. 29 2.394: EL liE IIEi: xul!-lu'frov AEyELV. 16 17

54

SUZANNE SAID

tides sometimes expresses some reluctance to use them. In the Hymn to Athena, he introduces the usual mythical part with a cautious sentence: 'If these matters must be mentioned in detail and the myths must not be neglected (Et M bEL 'Kat 'tmv EV !J.EQEL !J.VT]
30 37.11 ; C£]ohrens 1981, 85. 3l 37.27: El yae IIEi x.u-raMcruvtu 'toiJ~ !-lu'frou~ Ei.n:Eiv EL~ 'to !-lEcrOV 'to. 'tfj~ 'frEOU. 32 40 . 12. 33 46. 29. 34 46.3°: aUa 'tUU'tu !-lEV :n:ut..ma x.ui!-lu'friiillT]. 35 46.32: EL'tE Myov EL'tE !-lu'frov xe~ cpavm. 36 46.33. See Kindstrand 1973, 213. 37 34.59: &. 'tL~ av :n:EL'frOL'tO EQ cpeoviiiv;.

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

55

they are untrue and sometimes implausible and without substance at all (iJ:n:o'frE(JeL~ ... , oihe aA.TJ'freL~ oihe EVL
45.1. See the texts collected by Barwick 1928. 40 37.23. 41 34.45. 42 46 .33. 43 36.II2. See Kindstrand 1973, 212. 38 39

44

36.96.

45

31.9. 26.70: EV dAAw~ I-lu{}wv 'ta~eL. 20.6 and 25.31. 2.394: eL I'lE I'lei: Kat l-lu{}OV AEyeLv.

46 47

48

SUZANNE SAID

vain myth or dream, but factual reality (oux aAAw~ I-tu'fro~ mu'ta oM' ovaQ, UAA' v:ltaQ),.49 In the same way Dio, after introducing in the first Kingship Oration the story of Heracles as a muthos, corrects himself and calls it a sacred and sound tale (A.6yo~) which has only the form of

a myth." However Aristides, while often giving a plainly negative value to muthos,51 makes lavish use of mythical allusions in his speeches, for myth was a necessary adornment of a figured style. Moreover its flexibility, which is far superior to that of history, makes it into an indispensable tool for the orator, as demonstrated by the various explanations of the deification of Heracles. In the Hymn to Athena, it is of course Athena 'who clearly enrolled Heracles as a god among the gods'." But in the Panathenaic Oration, it is Athens alone which is said to be the first 'to establish for Heracles temples and altars'" (a version also adopted by the meletai delivered by Athenian orators)," whereas in the Hymn to Heracles the Athenians are preceded by Apollo, who 'immediately proclaimed the establishment of temples to Heracles and that sacrifices be made to him as a god' and 'revealed it to Athens'. 55 Aristides may also give a new twist to an old myth in order to make it more appropriate to his purpose. The Athenian hero Theseus was usually said to have modeled himself on Heracles." But in his praise of Athens, Aristides makes Athens into a role model (:ltaQui'lELYl-ta 'tou ~Lo'U) for

49

2.4 0 0 ; see also 48-42. 1.49: el 6' uQu ltiHI'Ov EthiAOL; 'tLVa axoucraL. ltuUov 6£ LEQov xul UyLfj Myov OX'l']ItU'tL ltui}O'IJ AEy0ItEVOV. 51 Kindstrand 1973, 204. 52 37.2 5. 53 1.5D-51; 52: 'all the gratitude which Heracles received from other men came from the city. For all men, in imitation of her, agreed upon what was just'; 360: 'The Athenians were the first Greeks to regard [Heracles] as a god' and 374 'they [Heracles and the Dioscuri] were the first strangers to whom the city revealed its sacred ceremonies, while they still lived among mankind, so that it clearly deified those to whom we now sacrifice'. 54 9. 30: 'we shall omit... how Heracles was the first stranger to be initiated in the mysteries and how we were the first to establish a temple for him'. IO.36: 'How is this conduct worthy of Dionysos and Heracles who, although being natives of your country, were first admired by us'. 11.65: 'when he [Heracles] departed from mankind, he received first among us [the Athenians] the same honors as the gods'. 55 4 0 . II: Elrfl-u; E;TJyEL'tO VErn; re 'HQUXAEO'IJ; t6QuEcri}aL xul i}UELV w; i}Eip. See also Isocrates, Philippus 33. Athens is said to be 'HQUXAEL It£V (J'\JVaL'tLaV YEvecri}aL 'tfj; ai}uvucr[u;. 56 E.g. Isocrates, Helen 23. Cf. Gotteland 200I, 254-255. 50

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

57

Heracles 'when he formed that resolve on behalf of all mankind', and his association with the Athenian Theseus becomes a 'clear sign"? of it.

II. The Heracles Myth and Rhetoric In his speeches, Aristides displays his rhetorical expertise by exploiting all the possibilities of myth, which may be interpreted literally or symbolically and used as direct argument or as an indirect reference term in comparisons. It is only in the meletai that various episodes in the Heracles myth are used as arguments or examples to be followed by speakers who capitalize on the archaizing taste of the audience" and hark back to the most ancient past, while sometimes using the well known rhetorical device of praeteritio and announcing their intention to leave the myths out." In the oration On behalf ifMaking Peace with the Athenians, the Lacedaemonian who favors showing mercy to the defeated Athenians reminds his fellow-citizens of their former behavior, how they welcomed the Heraclidae, who were the ancestors of the Spartan kings, and how Heracles, together with the Dioscuri, who were especially worshipped at Sparta, were the first strangers to be initiated by the Athenians." In the speech 70 the Thebans concerning the Alliance I, in order to obtain the Thebans' help against Philip, the Athenians similarly evoke 'all [their] acts which bear on friendship and trust, which cover so long a period and are so numerous'J" Beginning with the myths, they recall first the ties of friendship between Athens and Theban gods and heroes: 'We shall omit how we received Oedipus and how Dionysus came from you and met with Icarius and the gift which he gave him and how Heracles was the first stranger to be initiated in the mysteries and how we were the first to establish a temple for him', 62 then the personal friendships which are the strongest: 'For what is more glorious than the fellowship of Heracles and Theseus, or what

1.35. Bowie 1974. 59 8.18: Em A.EyELV; 9. 30: EUOOfLEV. 60 8.18. 61 9.30 • 62 9.30 • 57 58

SUZANNE SAID

more opportune for the Greeks?'63 They conclude by using this former friendship, also demonstrated by the common campaign waged by Heracles and Theseus against the Amazons, as an example to be followed." In a second speech on the same topic, the same argument is used and reinforced by a reference to the honors given by the Athenians to the Theban Heracles and Dionysos 'who, although being natives of your country, were first admired (e'ftaul-tu<J'tl1')oav) by US'.65 The Leuctrian debate, with its five successive speeches pro and contra, provides the best illustration of the flexibility of myth, since the same episode can be used by two orators to promote two opposite policies. On the one hand Heracles, as a descendant of Pelops and an ancestor of the Spartan kings, may be considered as a Spartan. So the Athenian who speaks in favor of the Lacedaemonian alliance and reminds his audience of 'many old and more recent deeds' which the cities share in common beside their joining against the barbarian, tells how the Athenians shared the mysteries with Heracles before all other foreigners, and were the first to grant him the same honors as the gods, when he departed from mankind.P On the other hand, Heracles, who was born at Thebes and closely associated with the Theban Iolaos, may be considered as Theban. Thus, the same argument is used (together with the reception of the Theban Oedipus) by the Athenian who pleads for siding with the Thebans, given the ancient connections between Athens and Thebes." Myth may be interpreted metaphorically. Accordingly in the Hymn to Athena, Aristides offers a translation of the tales concerning the help given by Athena to the most extraordinary exploits of Heracles: 'From these actions', he says, 'it seems to me that nothing other is signified than Athena's declaration of her opinion to the gods that they should decree Heracles a god'. 68 But myth is above all used by Aristides, according to the rules of epideictic rhetoric," as an appropriate reference in comparisons, and

63

9.32 •

64 9.33: 'tL ofivou I-lLI-l0UI-lE'3a 'to'u~ &QXl]Ylha~. 65 10.3 6. 66 11. 65.

12.67. 37.25. 69 Pernot 1993a, II, 768: 'les encomiastes aiment a comparer l'objet et les circonstances du discours a des figures ou des situations tirees de la mythologie, afin de transferer a l'objet compare le prestige qui s'attache ala mythologie.' 67 68

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

59

thus it serves as 'a means for ornatus and pathos'." Thus in the speech 10 Plato: in Defense if the Four, 'some utterly worthless men' (usually identified as the Cynics) who slander oratory are compared to 'a certain stage satyr who cursed Heracles, and next hung his head when he approached'," while Plato, who ranked Callicles and Pericles or Themistocles together, is like someone who would put on the same level Iphicles, the mortal son of Alcmene, and his divine brother Heracles." Conversely, an inappropriate mythical comparison is harshly criticized. For the anger of a comic poet cannot be likened to the wrath of a great hero: 'Is it not terrible, 0 earth and gods, for Aristophanes to attempt to compare his jokes to the deeds of Heracles?'73 Myth may also be used as minus, 'since it is surpassed by the matter under examination'. 74 When the Athenian orator of the melete 9 wants to demonstrate to his Theban audience how dangerous Philip is, he is not content with echoing the commonplace of Athenian rhetoric at the time of the Persian Wars and assimilating him to the Amazons, he goes as far as saying that Philip is even more dangerous: 'I think', he says, 'that they [Heracles and Theseus] would not have chosen the campaign against the Amazons or any other war, before they had jointly destroyed this one person, of whom neither the Isthmus nor any race is inexperienced, but both the earth and the sea are failing as a source of plunder'.75 Aristides also displays his virtuosity by capping a first mythical comparison with another one that is more surprising. Because Plato unfairly accused Pericles of 'making the Athenians babblers instead of orderly, he who prevented them from babbling as far as he could', Aristides in his speech 10 Plato: in Defense if the Four compares him to someone who would say that 'Heracles accustomed men to be brazen and bold because he went about using his bow and club, he who in quite the opposite way ... accustomed all men to be orderly'.76 In fact, according to Aristides, Pericles himself, if not like Heracles, was at any rate like 70

Lausberg 1998, 197.

71

3.672 • 3.644.

72

73 28.93. 74 Lausberg 1998, 191, quotes Quint. Inst. 8-4-9 (amplijicatio ... , quae fit per comparationem, incrementum ex minoribus petit). 75 9.33. In the same way the helmet and the shield of Diomedes which emitted fire serve as a foil for the true orators 'from whose very head the goddess [Athena] emits fire'. 76 3.66-67.

60

SUZANNE SAID

his henchman, 'Iolaos who burnt the heads of the mass, to quote the comic poet'," a comparison which also vividly bears out the dreadful character of the mob assimilated to the hydra." In the speech To Plato: in Defense qf Oratory, the traditional mythical simile is but a starting point for the elaboration of a surprisingly baroque comparison. Plato, who assimilates the orators to tyrantsan assimilation which, according to Aristides, is 'a combination of the uncombinable' eta U!1LX'tU !1LYVV~)-, is compared to a Heracles, who 'when ordered to slay the N emean lion, instead wrestled with an ass, and choking it, thought that he was strangling the lion and that he was doing what he intended'. 79 In the speech Against those who Burlesque the lvIysteries, in which Aristides pours out abuses against 'those servile fellows, the dancers, the pantomimes, and other charlatans'J? he shows the full extent of his talent. An imaginary objection based on a mythical precedent, 'Yes, by Zeus, but Heracles also danced (wQx~au'tO) among the Lydians"! becomes the pretext of a display ofvirtuosity. The objection is first dismissed because after all, the story of Heracles dancing among the Lydians is but a 'myth': 'The same writers [who report this story] also tell the following tale (!1u'froAoyovm) about Heracles, that he murdered his wife and sons when he was in a condition which is not proper to mention. What sensible person would believe this (&. 'tL~ o.v :7teL'frOL'tO di <jJQoVWV)?'82 Then, Aristides proposes a dazzling succession of alternative versions which all give a positive image of the hero. First, he minimizes the importance of this dancing and gives a positive view of Heracles' motives: 'I cannot say whether Heracles danced among the Lydians. But if he did, still it was a single day, out of playfulness and at the same time perhaps in mockery of the Lydians', then he adds, 'as a fourth argument', that 'he became no worse a man in the circumstances of his dancing, but he remained who he was' in order to emphasize the gap between the hero and these fellows whose burlesque dances (E1;oQXELa'frE) take place 'not 3.69. See also 1.128 where a first original simile, just as some of the poets say that Alexandros took a shadow of Helen, but could not take her, so Xerxes also held the ground, but did not find the city' is capped first with a bon mot 'but he found it well at Artemisium and Salamis', and then by a second mythical simile 'and he did not endure the sight, as it were of some mythical Gorgon, but he was terrified'. 77 78

79 80

81

82

2.30 7. 34.55. 34.59. 34.59.

AR1STIDES' USES OF MYTHS

61

among the Lydians, nor for a single time, nor in mockery, nor while internally sound, but before all mankind, every day'. He caps his criticism with a new mythological comparison of their dances, 'which, not to mention Heracles, it was not even proper to praise in Omphale'."

III. The Heracles Myth and Ideology Like his contemporaries, Aristides attempts to recycle the myth of Heracles and make it into a valid paradigm for his contemporaries. In his Hymn to Heracles, he suppresses every suggestion of a conflict among the gods or improper behavior by the hero. He mentions Heracles' first exploit, the killing of the serpents which came up to his swaddling clothes," but these serpents are no longer sent by Hera." The release of Prometheus," as well as the tales of how Heracles relieved Atlas, brought Cerberus from Hades and Theseus along with him, wounded Pluto and Hera, and subdued the Giants when he aided the gods, become a figure of speech invented by poets" and 'a hyperbolic (OL' iJJtEQBoAii~) way of saying that Heracles has searched through every land and every sea and has gone to every boundary and every limit and has neglected nothing beneath the earth nor as far as the heavens'.88 The pyre and what comes before disappear as well. They are replaced with a more acceptable 'purification'.89 Some famous episodes are reinterpreted and moralized. The exceptional length of the night spent by Zeus with Alcmene is no longer explained by sexual passion, but by his wish 'to infuse into his offspring the largest and purest possible amount of his nature'." 34.60. 40.3. 85 Diod.Sic. 4.10.1; Apollodorus, Bibliotheca 2.4.8. 86 Similarly Diodorus 4.15.2 suppresses any allusion to Prometheus' disobedience: his Heracles releases Prometheus by persuading (ltElaa~) Zeus to put an end to his wrath. 87 4°.7: E'X. I'lE 't01J1;IDV ltOLTJ'taL IIQoIlTJ{}Ea~ re 1m' au'tOu AlJOIlEVOlJ~ OlJVE{}Eoav. See Lenz 1964b,226. 88 40 . 8. Significantly, Diodorus (4.15.2) as well as Dio (8.33) suppress any allusion to a possible rebellion (See Pernot 1993a, 766). In the Panathenaic Oration the tale about the winged chariot of Triptolemos is also presented as a metaphor: 'Tradition told that the chariot was winged, because he went everywhere faster than anticipated' (36). 89 4o. lI : EltEI1\i] YUQ UltfjA{}EV E1; uv{}QomIDv 'HQa'X.Afj~ 'X.a{}aQ{}E~ DV AEYE'taL 'tQOltOV. 90 4 0 . 2. See also Diod.Sic. 4.9.2: 'By the magnitude of time he expanded on the procreation, he presaged the exceptional might of the child who would be begotten. And in general he did not effect this union from erotic desire (ou'X. EQID'tL'X.fj~ EltL{}\JIlLa~ 83

84

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The labors are reinterpreted in order to accommodate the needs of a contemporary audience, as is demonstrated by a comparison with former rhetorical versions." The mythical Heracles was right from the beginning a destroyer of monsters. But between the Attic orators and the historians (Diodorus of Sicily) and orators (Dio Chrysostom and Aristides) who lived under the Roman Empire the emphasis changes. When Isocrates in his praise of Helen alluded to Heracles' labors, he stressed that these feats were 'of no use'" and contrasts them with the exploits of Theseus, who became a 'benefactor of the Greeks as well as of his homeland'93 by putting an end to the damages caused by the Marathonian bull, killing the Minotaur and brigands such as Skiron and Cercyon, and stopping the violence of the Centaurs." On the contrary, Aristides, like Diodorus of Sicily" and Dio Chrysostom'" before him, displaces from Theseus to Heracles the theme of usefulness and stresses the civilizing role of Heracles:" 'he found a means of expelling the Stymphalian birds who were damaging much of Arcadia, as if it were his duty to liberate (EAEV'ltEQOVV) not only the earth and the sea, but also the air'.98 He also 'subdued the wild beasts whose multitude and hugeness prevented most of the countryside from being inhabited', an achievement closely associated by the conjunction rs ... xaL to the extermination of the tyrants and the annihilation of robbers on land and sea." This is complemented by his drainage of the lands EVE%U) as he did in the case of other women but rather only for the sake of procreation ('ti'j<; :n:mlio:n:OLLa<; XUQLV)'. 91 C£ Gotteland 200I, 235-244, on Heracles in Attic orators. 92 Isocrates 10.24::n:ovou<;, E1; tilv TlIJ-EAAEV ou 'tou<; aAAou<; WqJEAt]OELV. 93 Isocrates 10.25. 94 Isocrates 10.25-29. 95 Diod.Sic. 4. 17.3: 'To show his gratitude to the Cretans, he cleansed the island of the wild beasts which infested it'; and 4.17-4: 'he subdued Libya which was full of wild animals, and large parts of the adjoining desert, and brought it all under cultivation (E1;T]IJ-EQWOEV) ... Libya which before that time had been uninhabitable because of the multitude of wild beasts which infested the whole land, was brought under cultivation (E1;T]IJ-EQIDOU<;) by him and made inferior to no other country in point of prosperity'. 96 Dio 5.23; 17+ In 75.8, Dio compares the civilizing power of the law (ou'tO<; 6 Ti]v i}UAUUUV %Ui}ULQWV. 6 'tl]V yfivTiIJ-EQOV :n:OLmv) to Heracles the civilizer (The true king in the third oration is also portrayed as a civilizer,XIDQUV T]IJ-EQWOEV [127]). 97 T]IJ-EQowlE1;T]IJ-EQOW: Diod.Sic. 4.8.5; 17.4 (2 ex.); 2q; 29.6 (Iolaus); Dio 1. 84: [Heracles] 'tOu<; UVT]IJ-EQOU<; %ul :n:OVT]Qou<; UVi}QID:n:OU<; E%OAU~E. 98 40.5. C£ Diod.Sic. 4.13.2: 'the extraordinary multitude of birds which destroyed the fruits of the country roundabout'; and Dio 47.4: Heracles chased the birds 'to keep them from being a nuisance for the farmers in Stymphalus'. 99 40.4. See Dio 5.21, 8. 34.

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

that were 'oppressed by rivers or lakes (oou !-tEv :lto'ta!-tO>v QEU!-tUOLV Tj AL!-tVaLi; E:ltLl~~E'tO)'lOO and his transformation of dry soils into fertile ones by irrigation. 101 This portrait of Heracles as a destroyer of both monsters and tyrants, who cares for justice and punishes the unjust is echoed in other speeches of Aristides!" and before him in the Universal History of Diodorus!" and the speeches ofDio Chrysostom.'?' But in Aristides' Hymn as well as in Dio,105 as opposed to Isocrates and to the declamation 10 the Thebans I, where the orator plays the part of a contemporary of Demosthenes and praises the hero for the help given to the Greeks,106 the setting of Heracles' exploits is enormously enlarged and becomes coextensive with the universal Empire of Rome. When Isocrates celebrated Heracles in his Philip, he extolled his philanthropy and his goodwill towards the Greeks"? and made him into the first champion of panhellenism. By making an expedition against Troy, which was in those days the strongest power of Asia, his Heracles had put an end to wars and factions among the Greeks and brought the cities together. lOB In Aristides, Greece is but a starting point: The hero moves from Thebes, where he killed the serpents and relieved the Thebans from the tribute paid to the Orchomenians, and Greece, which he 'purified' (E%(HhlQE),109 to the whole human race."? In other speeches as well, Heracles' philanthropy is no longer directed only toward the Greeks,1l1 but also toward barbarians and mankind in general.!" At the same time, Aristides recasts his Heracles into a world emperor through the use of a vocabulary permeated with precise allusions to

100 See also Diod.Sic. 4.18.6 (the draining of the region called Tempe). 101 40.5. 102 2.227; 38.II, 17. 103 Diod.Sic. 4.17.5: ~1J{}oM>yoiiOL II' ulJ"tov lIuI ronro ~LOii(JaL lIUt ltOA.E~ij(JaL TO yEVOr:; TIDV UYQLmV ih]QLlOV lIUt ltUQUV6~lOV uvlIQIDv. Diodorus' narrative systematically emphasizes the injustice and the hubris of Heracles' adversaries: 4.ro.3; 12.5; 15.3; 17.5; 19.1; 21.5· 104 Dio 1.84; 8.31. 105 E.g. Dio 1.60. 106 9.3 2. 107 Isocrates 5.II4: T~V IjJIAUVi}QlOltLUV lIUt T~V EUVOLUV i]v ELXEV ELr:; "tOur:; "EMT]VUr:;. lOB Isocrates 5.1II-II 2. See Gotteland 2001, 239-244. 109 40.3. 110 40.5. 111 E.g. Isocrates 5. II4. 112 1.52; 3.68, 276. See also Dio 1.60, 63, 84; 5.21, 23.

SUZANNE SAID

contemporary political values. This transformation was already well on the way before Aristides. In his history Diodorus described Heracles campaigning like a Roman general, Il3 and in the first Kingship Oration, Dio rejected the mythical Heracles destroyer of monsters in favor of the political destroyer of tyrants,"! called him a 'king'115 and gave him an army, 'for it was not possible to sack cities, overthrow tyrants and give orders to everyone everywhere without military force' .116 Similarly Aristides, in the Hymn, alludes to the universal 'empire' ()'UvumELu) of Heracles established 'by blending law with the force of the arms'!" and portrays it elsewhere as a 'protection' given to all men. liB The tragic hero, who rid the world of destructive monsters and matched crude violence with greater violence, has been tamed and transformed into a government official: Aristides calls him a 'prefect (U:ltuQXo~) of the region beneath the lunar sphere'j!'? assimilating him to the governor appointed by the emperor to rule over a region."? The portrait of Heracles as an embodiment of restraint, procreated by Zeus 'so that human affairs might be properly ordered',121 put in charge of restraining the behavior of the cities either by laws or by force of arms.!" and accustoming all men to be orderly and to abide by the laws'" clearly conveys the same message and demonstrates the integration of the mythical hero into a Roman order guaranteed by an emperor who is accordingly given by Aristides the title of %00""1]L~~.124

113 Diod.Sic. 4.17.1. 114 Dio 1.84. See Moles 1990, 330. 1151.59,60,84;47-4116 Dio 1.59, 63. 117 40 . 6: "toiJ~ VOJ.lotJ~ "tOL~ O:ltAOL~ O'UY%EQUVViJ~, roO"tE "tfj~ E%ELVOtJ litJVUO"tEla~ J.lTjliEV EIVUL AUJ.l:ltQO"tEQOV J.l~"tE AtJO"L"tEAEO"tEQOV XQ~O"Uo{}UL. 3.276: 'HQU%AEL "tip %OLVip :ltUV"tlOV :ltQoO"tu"t"[j (see also 1.52, :ltQoO"tuO"la). The same word is applied to Zeus in 43.29, whereas :ltQoO"tuO"la is applied to Rome (26.36, ro8). 119 40.2. In 30.27 Dio, borrowing a metaphor from Spartan institutions, makes Herades (together with Dionysos and Perseus) into a harmost appointed by Zeus. 120 Aristides 50.75: 'prefect of Egypt'. The same word, associated with 'satrap,' is also applied to the gods appointed by Zeus to rule over the four regions of the universe in Aristides 43.18, as well as to Athens (1.404). 121 40.2: O:ltlO~ %oO"J.lTj{}ELTj "ta "tiiiv av{}QW:ltlOV :ltQUYJ.lU"tU. 122 40.4: "ta~ ilE :ltOAEI.,; O"lOIjJQOVL~lOV "ta~ J.lEv "tOL~ VOJ.lOL~, "ta~ liE "tOL~ O:ltAOL~. 123 3.68: E{}L~lOV ... :ltuV"tu~ %OO"J.lLotJ~ EIVUL %ul "tOL~ VOJ.lOL~ EJ.lJ.lEVELV. In the Hymn he is also portrayed as a 'legislator' (40.5: EVOJ.lO{}E"tTjO"EV). 124 26.6: "tip aQLO"t!p aQxov"tL %ul %oO"J.lTj"tfi. J.l~"tE liB

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

rv

The Prometheus Myth

A reading of the Prometheus myth in Aristides 10Plato: in Defense ofOratory confirms the conclusions drawn about Heracles. It best illustrates how Aristides succeeds in transforming the Protagoras myth, which was the charter myth of democratic Athens, into a justification of the Roman Empire and the power of the civic elite. 125 According to Aristides, there was in the beginning 'a great disturbance (MQu~o~) and confusion ('taQaxi]) upon the earth. Men neither knew what to do with themselves-for there was nothing which brought them all together, but the bigger led the smaller-nor could they maintain themselves against the other animals' .126 This description echoes Plato's Protagoras,127 but also Aristides' description of the world before the invention of oratory, 'when human affairs were falling into utter ruin'. 128 Accordingly, the impossibility of survival is no longer explained, as in Plato, by the absence of political science and the art of war, which is part of political science.l" but by the absence of rhetoric, as suggested by the emphasis on the silence of men as they perish.P" A significant echo of this description is also to be found in the Roman Oration in the portrait of the world before the rule of Zeus, when 'everything was filled with faction, uproar, and disorder (lbtaV'ta O'taOE«)~ xat {}oQu~ou xat &'taSLa~ dVaL f.tEO'ta)' and before the Roman Empire: 'before your empire everything was in confusion, topsy-turvy, and completely disorganized (:7tQo f.tEv 'tfj~ Uf.tE'tEQa~ &Qxfj~ av«) xat %a't«) OUVE'tE'taQa%'tO %at d%fj eqJEQE'to ['ta :7tQaYf.taLaJ)'.131 Moreover Aristides completely transforms the role of Prometheus. As in Aeschylus.!" the Titan remains a 'friend of mankind', 133 but he is no longer a trickster and a thief who gave men either the fire from which they learnt all the arts or the knowledge of the arts that ensure a livSee Cassin 1991; Pernot 1993a; and WISsmann 1999. 2.395. 127 322b: 'they were killed by the wild beasts since they were in every way inferior to them ... they harmed each other'. 128 2.208. 129 Plato, Prot. 322b-c: ltOA.L'tL%~V YUQ 'tEXVT]V OVltlll ELXOV ~~ IlEQO~ ltOA.EIlL%1] ... ,hE OU% EXOV'tE~ 't~v ltOA.L'tL%~V 'tEXVT]V. 130 2.395: rocn:E nltlIJMvV'to
66

SUZANNE SAID

ing.134 He becomes a self-appointed ambassador on mankind's behalf'!" and goes up to heaven to inform Zeus about the desperate situation of men, prefiguring contemporary sophists who serve as mediators between the provincial cities and the imperial center. Thus he becomes a precursor of Aristides, who many years later moved Marcus Aurelius to tears with his description of Smyrna's destruction and succeeded in securing imperial funding for the reconstruction of the city. As for Zeus, he behaves like a good emperor: 'full of admiration for Prometheus' just speech'i!" he sends Hermes to mankind with a remedy. But this remedy is no longer, as in the Protagoras myth, 'mutual respect and justice' (aL()W re xat ()LXTJV), that is politics, the supreme 'tEX,vTJ, which teaches men how to behave as members of a community, acknowledging the legitimate claims of others and setting themselves limits. It is replaced as a
137 2. 2 0 9. 138 2.40 I. 139 140 141 142 143

2.397: 'toiJ~ uQ[O'tOlJ~, XUL YEvvuLO'ta'tOlJ~ XUL 'ta~ «pUOE~ EQQWI-lEVEO'ta'tOlJ~. 2.397: LV' 01-l0U o«pa~ re uu'tOiJ~ XUL 'tOiJ~ aMolJ~ OW~ELV El(OLEV. Wissmann 1999, 139-143. Nicocles 5: 'tOU ltE[ftELV UAA~AOlJ~. 2.235: EltEL 'tov EV x6ol-lCfl 13lov ltQo 'tfj~ u'tu!;[u~ uLQouV'tm.

ARISTIDES' USES OF MYTHS

the myths in the right direction and make them into a parable of the real and the true'!" and mold them so that they will become a mirror of contemporary reality. True, one has to say, paraphrasing L. Pernot, that 'la position adoptee par le genre epidictique [en general et Aristide en particulier] n'est ni neuve ni originale ... [Mais] il ne s'ensuit pas que ce message soit depourvu de force ni de subtilite'.145

144 Dio 5.1: EAXOfJ.EVa lIn lIQO<;; 'to Mov xaL lIaQa~aM6fJ.Eva 'toL<;; oiim xaLUATJitEmv. 145 Pernot 1993, 760.

CHAPTER FOUR

ARISTIDES AND THE PANTOMIMES

G.W

BOWERSOCK

In 361 Libanius sent a letter to Demetrius of Tarsus to accompany the texts of two speeches he had recently written. In one of these he claims to have launched a polemic against Aelius Aristides: :ltQo~ 'AQLO't'EL{)T]V I-LaX0I-LaL.1 The sixty-fourth oration in the surviving corpus of Libanius seems to correspond with this description, and scholars are generally agreed that this is the work Libanius sent to Demetrius. It is a vigorous and lengthy assault on a lost speech of Aristides that had prudishly denounced the dancers known as pantomimes for corrupting their viewers. The pantomimes were individual dancers of balletic virtuosity who in solo performances enacted familiar myths with the aid of masks, costumes, and music. They enjoyed enormous popularity throughout the Roman Empire, as did their more ordinary colleagues, the mimes, who spoke lines and acted together with one another. Both mimes and pantomimes were important transmitters of Hellenic mythology and culture. As some of the more austere Christian preachers complained, they appealed to a diverse audience and linked together persons of different religion and ethnic background in theatrical pleasure." Libanius confined himself exclusively to the pantomimes, who were the great virtuosi of the stage, although he says that Aristides had tried to denigrate them by linking them with the mimes." The debate between these two great sophists, two centuries apart, is full of paradox. In his austere preaching against corruption from watching lubricious entertainments, Aristides sounds more like a Father of the Christian church than the dedicated polytheist he was, the author of resplendent prose hymns to Olympian gods. Libanius, by contrast, espouses with

Lib. Epist. 615 Foerster. See, for example, Moss 1935: Jacob of Sarug on the spectacles of the theater. 3 Lib. Orat. 64.ro. Behr 1986, 416-419 (with notes on 50l-503) presents excerpts from Libanius as probable fragments of Aristides' original speech. 1

2

70

G.W. BOWERSOCK

particular warmth a form of entertainment that we know he openly disliked and avoided. Subsequently he even undertook to terminate it in his native city of Antioch. Furthermore, Aristides was, as he states explicitly and emphatically, an orator for whose achievement he had unbounded admiration. If 361 was the date of the speech against Aristides, it would have fallen in the early part of the usurpation of the emperor Julian, whose cause Libanius strongly supported and whose memory he eloquently cultivated. YetJulian, like Libanius, disliked the dancers.' So how does it happen that Libanius took issue with an admired predecessor over an art-form for which neither he nor the apostate emperor had any sympathy? And why had Aristides himself shown such hatred for those popular mediators of Hellenism? To be sure, arguing against an impeccable model such as Aristides would be in itself a feat of sophistic brilliance, and Libanius perhaps relished the challenge. He certainly managed to reduce Aristides' arguments to nonsense by showing that a few corrupt or effeminate performers could no more impugn the art of the pantomime than a murderous doctor could impugn the medical profession. Audiences are no more corrupted by what they see in the dances than they are by the vicious and bloody competitions of boxers and pancratiasts.' Furthermore, Libanius asks, are the pantomimes more criminal than those who overturn altars, steal votive offerings, destroy shrines, and burn statues?" This curious register of miscreants actually seems to allude to Christians, since pagans and Jews were not known to have committed misdeeds of that kind. Christians did indeed go on such rampages, conspicuously at Daphne, near Antioch, when Julian's brother, the Caesar Gallus, had undone the oracle of Apollo by importing into the temple precinct the earthly remains of St. Babylas. If the pagan Aristides in his puritanical mode of denouncing the pantomimes sounded rather like a Christian, it seems as if Libanius attacked him in his response almost as if he were. To some extent, the Syrian origins of many famous dancers roused Libanius to defend himself as a Syrian. In his speech Aristides had been

C£ Wiemer 1995, 6g-'71 (Die Rede 'FUr die Tanzer'). For murderous doctors, Lib. Orat. 64. 44, for boxers and pancratiasts, ibid. 61 and II9. On the speech and its arguments see Mesk 1909 and Molloy 1996. 6 Lib. Orat.64.33. 4

5

ARISTIDES AND THE PANTOMIMES

71

rude about Syrians.' But, even so, the motivation for Libanius' curious defense of an entertainment he despised can only be left to speculation. Yet, with the help of his abundant references to Aristides' lost work and his occasional quotations from it, we can reasonably deduce the provocation that led Aristides himself to condemn the pantomimes. This deduction opens up issues of sophistic competition and jealousyissues that we have long known were fundamental to the so-called Second Sophistic. Aristides' sense of his high calling as a rhetor did not easily accept any comparison with less grandiose professions. In his day the popularity of the pantomimes clearly vexed him." This paper seeks to find out why. We know that Aristides' speech was addressed to the Spartans, although it is clear, from the citations and from Libanius' commentary, that he did not actually go to Sparta to deliver it." Libanius assumes that to some extent Aristides chose that city as his addressee in order to invoke the high-minded austerity of the legendary regime of Lycurgus. But, as Libanius points out, and Aristides himself must have been well aware, the Sparta of the second century AD was an utterly different place from the city of Lycurgus. Besides, as Libanius observes, Aristides himself had never declaimed by the banks of the Eurotas and therefore had no attachment to Sparta. So why did Aristides turn to that city, out of all those major cities that welcomed pantomimes, when he undertook to denounce them? Libanius offers a perceptive analysis: 'You claim to be giving advice to the Spartans alone because you know that the others would be annoyed by your speech. Where was it that you customarily worked up your numerous and splendid declamations? In what cities did you orate? Whose applause made you a star? I note that you did not choose Sparta as a workshop for your art, nor did you release your words to flow alongside the river Eurotas. But you used to go to the Hellespont, to Ionia, Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, and to Egypt, the land which, as you say yourself, first brought forth the evil. You even went to Rome, where the dancing profession is highly esteemed'. 10 This means that in declaiming about the pantomimes Aristides had deliberately chosen to avoid all the important cities where he had him-

7

B 9 10

Lib. Drat. 64.9. For the whole topic, see the still fundamental study of Robert 1930. Lib. Drat. 64.IO-II, cf 80. Lib. Drat. 64.80.

G.W. BOWERSOCK

self enjoyed great success-Pergamum, Smyrna, Ephesus, Rome itsel£ These were all places that cultivated and admired the pantomimes. And yet they admired Aristides too. In denouncing the tastes of the Spartans, Aristides would not be offending a constituency that had ardently supported him. He was safe with Sparta, since he had no connection with it. A master of rhetoric would have readily savored the potential of castigating the descendants of Lycurgus for watching pantomimes. In his speech Aristides charged that pantomime dancing had changed over time for the worse, that by his day performers were little more than prostitutes on public view. He claimed that their sinuous, even contorted movement was an abomination that would lead viewers into bad habits." It proved easy for Libanius to contest these assertions: in rhetoric itself, change and innovation over time was fruitful." There were even paragons of virtue among the famous pantomimes, and no one was known to have become corrupt or criminal from watching a show. Yet Aristides had inveighed against one of his sophistic rivals for using his rhetorical prowess in honor of a deceased pantomime, a famous dancer called Paris. According to Libanius, 'Even the man who was once conspicuous among us with the same name as the ancient herdsman in whose presence the goddesses were judged for their beauty was so lamented on his bier by the sophist of Tyre ... that no greater tribute could have been devised to honor a departed sophist. For he did in fact call the dancer precisely that. Did he choose to disgrace himself utterly by the encomium of a prostitutei''" As scholars have readily perceived, that eulogist was none other than Aristides's distinguished second-century contemporary, Hadrian of Tyre.'! It is obvious that Aristides had protested bitterly because his eminent rival had treated Paris just as if he were a deceased sophist and even called him that. As far as Aristides was concerned, Hadrian had sullied his reputation by an encomium of a whore. This treatment of a pantomime as a sophist by the great rhetor whose reputation was at the time easily the equal of Aristides' evidently Lib. Orat. 64.28 and 43 (noQvOL). Lib. Orat.64.2 2 . 13 Lib. Orat. 64.41: ... 0001:' oux oI/)' 8 11

12

'tL UV E~~'tT]OE flE~OV, EL OOlPL01:~V OLXOflEVOV

E'tLfla. 8~ yE xat 'to;:;'t' au'to nQOOELltELV ~~LlJ)(JE 'tOV 6QXT]01:~V. ltIIW YUQ au'tov Ert..E'tO xa'taQQlJnaLVELv EV 'tOL~ EY'X.lJ)fllo~ 'to;:; nOQvolJ. 14

PIR2 H 4. See especially Philostr. Vit. Sopko

2.10

(pp. 585-590 Olearius).

ARISTIDES AND THE PANTOMIMES

73

opened up a deep vein of resentment, both against Hadrian of Tyre himself and against the whole profession of dancers, who appeared to be usurping the high prestige of public speakers. This appears to have been at least one of the sparks that ignited the flame of Aristides' rage against the pantomimes. In his view they were contemptible panders to public pleasure, and-worse still-were hailed as equal in artistic talent to sophists and rhetors. The case of Hadrian of Tyre's eulogy for the deceased Paris clearly reflected the heightened prestige of pantomimes in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and it was no less clearly this prestige that bothered Aristides. During the reign of Lucius Verus, probably during his sojourn in Syrian Antioch, Lucian wrote a famous essay in defense of theatrical dancing.'> The authorship of this work, once doubted, has now been generally vindicated as authentically Lucianic, and the essay may well have been known to Libanius in writing his reply to Aristides. We have no way of telling whether it was known to Aristides himself and served as some kind of irritant, but Lucian's opinion was as positive as it was well informed. For the relation of pantomime to rhetoric, the essay provides precious testimony. In general, there were no competitions (aywvE£) for pantomimes although the dancers performed a repertoire of tragic themes, and they were sometimes known as 'tQayuwL. But, says Lucian, there was one exception to the lack of thymelic crowns for them. In Italy there were competitions for dancers." We may surmise that this happened at the Sebasta in hellenophone Naples, and perhaps also at the Capitolia in Rome or the Eusebeia in Puteoli. The conjunction of the word tragic with a pantomime is reinforced by Lucian's observation that tragedy and tragic dance were almost indistinguishable: at U:JtOi}EOEL£ zorvcl a!J.'tEQaL a-omL ('The themes for both were the same, and the ones for dancers differed from tragedy only in that they were more ornamented'.) As Louis Robert demonstrated brilliantly in one of his earliest articles and one of his very few in German, the epigraphy of pantomimes in the later second century perfectly displays the technical diction of the trade."

15 Lucian, De Saltatume. For an important discussion of this work see]ones 1986, 6877 ('The court of Lucius Verus'). 16 Lucian, De Salt. 31-32. 17 Robert 1930.

74

G.W. BOWERSOCK

Let us observe some examples. The movement (xLvT]<JLe;) of a dancer is regularly qualified as rhythmic (evQv{}J10e; or EiJQv{}J10e;, both forms appear)." It is also described as tragic ('tQUYLXi)). On one inscription from Heraclea Pontica pantomime dancing appears as 'rhythmic tragedy' ('tfie; EVQU{}J10V 'tQuycp~Lue; O"tElpOe;), and a pantomime dancer can sometimes be called simply a 'tQuycpMC;.19 A dancer, such as the great Apolaustus or Paris of Apamea can be called an actor (UJtOXQL'ti)C;), albeit one with rhythmic movement.t" This technical language turns up significantly in Libanius in contexts that appear clearly to paraphrase or echo Aristides' original. There is a whole section on xLvT]<JLC;, as well as a treatment of the dancer's gestures (veuJ1u'tu).21 Towards the end of his speech Libanius, probably echoing Aristides, calls the pantomimes 'tQuycp~oL It is evident that in his speech Aristides had resorted to the standard diction that was deployed in praise of the dancers of his day. What the epigraphy also reveals, in addition to the characteristic language by which pantomimes were honored, is precious information about the place of pantomimes in the international aywvec; of the Graeco-Roman world. It now appears that soon after Lucian wrote his essay on dancing the great agonistic festivals added dancing to the competitions. Rhetoric, poetry, kithara-playing, trumpet-playing had long since secured a firm place in the thymelic aywvec; of the Roman empire, but, as Louis Robert already pointed out eighty years ago, the addition of dancing as a crown event came as an innovation in the second century outside of Italy (Naples, as we have seen, and possibly Rome or Puteoli, or both). The innovation in the eastern empire must have come between 165, which is the latest date for Lucian's treatise, and the reign of Commodus, during which the celebrated Tiberius Iulius Apolaustus boasted of being the first pantomime to win a crown at

18 For %lVT]OL~ see Lib. Orat. 64.28. On rhythmic movement, see Fouilles de Delphes 111.1, 55r: Tib. lul. Apolaustos, 't[QuYL%ii~ eV]Qu{}1l0U %Lvr](JEl1l~ U:n:O%QL't'!][V]. L Magnesia (Kern) 165 eVQu{}1l0U, 192 e]vQu{}[IlOU. fCR 4. 1272 and TAM V.wI6 (Thyateira): eVQu{}Ilou. SEC 1.529 (Syrian Apamea) eVQu{}ll[ou]. Sahin 1975 (Heraclea Pontica, with photo), cf. BulLEp 1976. 687: eVQu{}llou. Blume! 2004, 20-22: EUQU{}IlLa. Observe Herodian 5.2.4 %Lvr](JEl1l~ EUQU{}1l0U. 19 Sahin 1975, SEC XI. 838 ('tQuyrpl\ip ~Ll\l1lVlqJ). 20 Fouilles de Delphes 111.1, 551: Tib. Iul, Apolaustos. Cf. BullEp 1976. 721 (citing ReyCoquais 1973, no. ro): honors to Julius Paris of Apamea 'tQuYL%ii~ %ELV'!](JEl1l~ U:n:O%QL't'!]V. 21 For %lV1]OL~ see note 18 above. For VEUIlU'tU, Lib. Orat.64'59.

ARISTIDES AND THE PANTOMIMES

75

Pergamum and in Thebes." His other victories in great cities, including Ephesus, Athens, Corinth, Sparta, Laodicea, and Sardis, were evidendy not the first for a pantomime." Hence it would be reasonable to assign the introduction of pantomime competitions either to the later years of Marcus or the early years of Commodus. This chronology fits well with Aristides' intemperate judgment of both pantomimes and mimes in his extant speech XU'tll 'trov el;oQXouI-tEVWV (no. 34 ~gainst the Betrayers of the Mysteries'). This is a work that can be assigned to Smyrna in early 170.24 Towards the end Aristides contrasts rhetors, philosophers, and all others in liberal education with dancers, mimes, and magicians (OQXT]O'tUL~, I-tLI-tOL~, ttuUI-tU'tO:7tOLOL~), who please the crowds but are held in low regard." The dancers are clearly the pantomimes, as they are in the lost speech, whereas the mimes are, as indeed they were, speaking performers." Aristides even asks, 'Who would allow a mime to speak off stage?' in order to emphasize the lowly status of such a person. Aristides' prejudice is evident in this passage, but there is nothing here to suggest that pantomimes had yet been elevated to the level of agonistic competitions with honors that were accorded to the greatest rhetors of the age. This provides a slighdy later terminus post quem than Lucian for the innovation that so outraged Aristides. It came after 170. It is obviously relevant to understanding Aristides' lost speech that one of the first documented examples of a pantomime in the international thymelic competitions comes precisely from Sparta, on a midto-late second-century inscription detailing the accounts for prizes to contestants." Among the winners are a pantomime from Sidon, a 'tQUyq>M~ ~L6cbvLO~, (observe that this is yet another such performer from

22 Fouilles deDelphes 111.1, 551, cf IK Ephesus 6. 2070-2071: first in Thebes. Strasser 2004 discusses but does not add to the dossier on the introduction of dancers into the eastern agonistic festivals. 23 For another inscription of Apolaustos, Robert 1966b, 756-759 and BullEp 1967. 251, reviewing Corinth 8. 3 (Kent), nos. 370+ 693. 24 For the date, see Behr 1981, 398 n. 1. The speech is described in the Fifth Sacred Discourse, 38--40. 25 Aristid., Orat. 34.55 and 57. 26 Behr 1981, 183, in his translation of Aristides' speech, misunderstands the three nouns in Orat. 34.55 and wrongly turns the mimes into pantomimes. He compounds the error when he translates the question in 34.57 (-tL~ uv "tip flLfllp lJUYXWQ~OELEV E~W ljJl'}eYYEO'f}aL;) 'Who would permit the pantomime to speak off stage?' One might also add that the article in this question is generic. 27 SEC XI. 838.

G.W. BOWERSOCK

greater Syria), a trumpeter, kithara-player, encomiast, painter, as well as the traditional runners and pentathletes. One of the winners is Aelius Granianus from Sicyon, a pentathlete and runner whom Pausanias mentions as honored with a bronze statue near Sicyon for his Olympic victories." So this suggests a probable date for the Spartan inscription in the last decade of Marcus." Louis Robert had emphasized long ago the proliferation of contests in later second-century Sparta, with its three festivals of the Kaisareia, Eurykleia, and Ourania. He was explaining the role of the presiding magistrate, who was called a xystarch there. 30 We should note that the late-second-century star Apolaustos included Sparta among the cities where he took the crown." Artemidorus, author of our one surviving book of dream interpretations, was, to judge from various chronological indications, working in the later second century. Hence it is instructive to observe that he registers pantomime dancing, to which he evidently alludes by the phrase 'dancing with writhing (OQXTJOL£ f.tE'tCt O'CQoqJi'j£)', as among the crown contests." Similarly the inscription from Heraclea Pontica, which we have cited earlier, refers to taking the 'the wreath of rhythmic tragedy', in other words pantomime, for the first time (ro :7tQ(inov). This is probably another sign of the recent introduction of tragic dance into Greek thymelic competitions. The language reappears in the third-century historian Herodian, who refers to 'rhythmic movement'. 33 In arguing against Aristides, Libanius resorts frequently to comparisons with athletes and Greek competitions." His remarks clearly presuppose that Aristides took a highly positive view of boxers, pancratiasts, and pentathletes. Hence he michievously conjures up a male ath28 Pausan. 2.11.8. See Cartledge and Spawforth 1989, 188 (Spawforth) with 264 n. 16, and Appendix Iv, 'Foreign agonistai at Sparta' (Spawforth) (232-233). There is little to be said for Spawforth's inclination to identify Granianus with Cranaus in Julius Africanus: cf. Moretti, 1957, 163, no. 848. 29 Pausanias was writing in the middle 170's: Corinth founded 217 years before (s.1.2), and the Costoboci, who invaded in the early years of the decade (IO.34.5). His first book was written earlier (7.20.6, on his omission of Herodes' odeion for Regilla), but the reference to Granianus occurs in the Konnthiaka. 30 Robert 1966, I02-I04 (;uO"tuQXlJ<; "tliiv EV AULKE~aLllovL UyWVlOV). 31 Robert 1930, 114 (where 'Tib. Claudios Apolaustos' is erroneously written for 'Tib. Iulios Apolaustos'). Spawforth, in his list of foreign competitors at Sparta (n. 28 above), evidendy missed Apolaustos. 32 Artemid., Oneir. 1.56 (p. 64 Pack): JtEQL M JtUQQLXlJ<; KaL OQXi]OElO<; IlE"tu O"tQoqJfj<; EV "tOT<; JtEQL O"tEqJUVlOV. 33 See n. 18 above. 34 E.g., Lib. Orat. 64.61 and II9.

ARISTIDES AND THE PANTOMIMES

77

lete, duly oiled and garbed, who plays the female role in sexual activity.35 This is one of Libanius' many illustrations to show that one miscreant does not impugn an entire category. Similarly, in response to the supposedly bad influence of dancers upon their viewers, Libanius asks whether those who watch a bloody pancration or a fierce boxing match are inspired to go out and do likewise." Again the presupposition of Libanius' comment is that from Aristides' perspective viewing such activities would be wholly acceptable. Consequently Libanius can cunningly strengthen his argument by adducing the athletic prowess of pantomimes in accomplishing their formidable leaps on the stage, far beyond (as he points out) the ability of any pentathlete." Yet clearly Aristides approved of the pentathlon. And finally, Libanius links pantomimes with trumpeters, who had long enjoyed a privileged place in Greek festivals." Accordingly, Libanius' numerous comparisons with agonistic festivals may be taken to imply that Aristides had responded with particular indignation to the recent incorporation of the pantomimes in thymelic competitions. For him this public institutionalization of the dancers in the Greek festivals would have effectively constituted the elevation of a pantomime to the level of a sophist or rhetor, precisely as Hadrian of Tyre had proposed in his eulogy of Paris. On present epigraphic evidence, Sparta was among the first to welcome this innovation in its festivals, and so Aristides' choice of the Spartans as his target may well reflect more than a simple desire to invoke old-fashioned austerity, such as that associated with Lycurgus. Libanius shrewdly observed that Aristides was in no position to denounce the audiences who had heard and admired him in Pergamum or Smyrna, and so, to make his point, he had to fix on a pantomime-loving city where he had not actually declaimed. Hence an address to Sparta, rendered in absence, allowed Aristides the luxury of venting his spleen at what he perceived to be a debasement of traditional Greek aywver; without insulting his enthusiasts in Asia Minor, in Athens, or in Rome. But a little less than two hundred years later another of his enthusiasts called his bluff.

35 Lib. Drat. 64.54: 'tu yuVaLXWV Ec'\O~E :ltOLELV. 36

37 38

Lib. Drat. 64.II9. Lib. Drat. 64.68-6g: ... :ltEc'\WV'tU 'tWV Lib. Drat. 64.98.

:ltEv'tuiH..mv f.lUXQO'tEQU.

CHAPTER FIVE

AELIUS ARISTIDES' ILLEGIBLE BODY

BROOKE HOLMES

Many modern readers have found it improbable that the Hieroi Logoi are the product of literary ambition. Their author, however, who trafficked professionally in the great Greek writers of the past, leaves little room for ambiguity about his aspirations, declaring in the first sentence: 'I see myself creating an account in the manner of Homer's Helen' (Or. XLVI!'I).l Aristides' framework, then, is epic, and more specifically that of the Otfyssry--that much is clear.2 Yet in what respects is the Otfyssey a model for Aristides' undertaking? The most obvious point of contact is the resemblance of Aristides' sufferings to those of Odysseus, long buffeted on stormy seas. In both cases, moreover, those countless evasions of death attest the presence of a tutelary deity-Athena and Asclepius respectively" But why Helen? In Otfyssey IV; we can recall, it is Helen who selects a tale from 'all the toils of stout-hearted Odysseus' to tell his son Telemachus. She is thus like an epic narrator faced with a vast archive of stories.' Yet Helen, 1 1I0xoo f.lOL XU'to. ri]v 'EAEVT]V 't~v 'Of.l~Qou 'tOV Myov ltOL~OEO'frUL. I have used Keil's edition, in which the six books of the Hieroi liJgoi are Orationes XLVII-ill. Translations from Aristides are my own unless noted. Numbers preceded by a T correspond to the testimonia in Edelstein and Edelstein 1945, whose translations I have used. 2 On the Odysseus theme, see Schroder 1987. For the importance of Aristides' travels to his understanding of the body, see the contribution of Petsalis-Diomidis in this volume. 3 EXamT] yo.Q 'toov ~f.lE'tEQroV ~f.lEQooV, roOU'lJ'tro~ I\i; XUL VUX'toov, EXEL OUYYQUqJ~V, EL 'tL~ ltUQWV ~ 'to. OUf.lltLlt'toV'tU alt0YQaqJELV ~1301jAE'tO ~ 't~V 'tou t}EOU ltQOVOLUV IILT]ydO'frUL. ('for each of our days, just as each of our nights, had a story if someone who was there wished either to record what happened or recount the providence of the god', Or. XLVII.3). I follow Wilamowitz, Festugiere, Behr, and Schroder in retaining the ltuQwv of the manuscripts. Keil proposed emending to ltuQ' EV, arguing that the line was corrupted under the influence of the ltuQwv in the following line. Wilamowitz ably defended the manuscript reading by citing Or. XLVIII.56 and Or. L.2o, cases where Aristides uses the plural (ol ltUQOV'tE~) to refer to those who were present at an event in question (the onset of an attack and an oratorical performance) and can corroborate Aristides' account. 4 Aristides in fact cues the locus classicus of unspeakable epic magnitude, II. 2.489, in the first lines (oUII' EL f.lOL IlExu f.lEv yAooOOUL, IlExu liEmof.lu,;' dEV, Or. XLVII.I).

BROOKE HOLMES

as Aristides would have surely known, is not simply Homer's double. In the story she chooses to tell, she recounts a time that she herself, when she was at Troy, met Odysseus, who had infiltrated the city in disguise; she alone discovers his identity and compels him to reveal the secret plans of the Greeks (Od. 4.250-264). Helen, then, is a narrator whose credentials rest in part on her ability to match the mitis of her subject with her own cunning intelligence like some dark Penelope. This skill turns out to be apposite to Aristides' task. He, too, is faced with a subject that is not only long-suffering but also uncommonly polymorphous: a body whose constantly changing face of disease ('t~v :ltOLXLA.LUV 'tfj~ vooou, Or. XLVIII.6g) is the occasion for ongoing divine attention. The prologue to the Hieroi Logoi gives every indication that we are dealing not with an artless collection of dreams and everyday minutiae but rather with a deliberate attempt to tell an epic story that requires all of the narrator's resources. In this paper, I argue that by analyzing how Aristides represents the difficulty of both interpreting and memorializing the body's suffering we can better understand his epic aspirations. In fact, I suggest that his struggle to communicate what has happened to him draws attention to a tension within those aspirations between his identity as the author of the Hieroi Logoi and his identity as a devotee of Asclepius. For although he wishes to give a public account of his remarkable life, albeit in response to a command from Asclepius,' he is also interesting in preserving, or at least preserving the impression of, a uniquely heroic and unfathomable intimacy with the divine. In what follows, I focus on the two principal occasions for the expression of this tension: Aristides' dreams, through which he gains a privileged perspective on his symptoms, and his translation of suffering into a legible text capable of commemorating Asclepius's benefaction. In both of these areas, we might expect the body, since it is where suffering takes place, to play an important role in interpretation and commemoration. In fact, I will argue that the body is significant to Aristides precisely because it evades these practices. In this respect, the approach adopted here diverges from recent work on the role of 5 vuvl lIE 'tOlJO{)'tOL~ ihElJL lIUt XQ6VOL~ UlTtEQOV O\jJEL~ OVELQIl'tIDV uvuYllu~OUlJLV ~fLa~ aYELv Ul)'tu ltID~ E~ fLElJOV (,Now, after so many years and so much time later, dream visions compel us to make these things public', Or. XLVIII.2). Asclepius is preparing for this text from the beginning: E1Jtro~ E~ uQXfi~ ltQoEmEv (, {}EO~ Ult0YQUlpELV 'tU oVEiQU'tU. lIUt 'tou't' ~v 'tIDV EltL'tUYfLU'tIDV ltQID'tOV ('Right from the beginning, the god ordered me to record my dreams. And this was the first of his commands', Or. XLVIII.2).

AELIUS ARISTIDES' ILLEGIBLE BODY

Aristides' body in the Hieroi Logoi. Much of this work has been spurred, at least in part, by rising interest in the corporeal codes of identity in imperial-age ethics, medicine, rhetoric, and physiognomy" At the same time, scholars have become more aware of Aristides' literary selfconsciousness, as well as the relationship of the Hieroi Logoi to other Greco-Roman first-person writing.' In this climate, the equation of Aristides' body with a text has become something of a commonplace. That text is often understood as a 'script' of divine favor that is then copied into the archive and, eventually, the Hieroi Logoi. 8 It has also been described as a 'psychic text' of Aristides' struggles against cultural codes of masculinity, an interpretation that combines the tradition of seeing Aristides' symptoms and dreams as evidence of his troubled unconscious with the equally prominent tradition of treating them as evidence of his culture's anxieties." These scholars have done much 6 On the body and elite (masculine) identity in the imperial period, see Gleason 1995; Gunderson 2000; Connolly 2007. The increased interest in the day-to-day life of the body in the Second Sophistic was identified early on by Bowersock (1969, 69-73). For Aristides' relationship to what P. Hadot has called 'exercices spirituels' (1981) and M. Foucault 'techniques du soi' (1986; 1997b), see Perkins 1992 (= 1995, 173-199); Miller 1994, 184-204; Shaw 1996, 300; Pernot 2002, 383. 7 On the literary and rhetorical character of the Hieroi Logoi, see Pearcy 1988; Pigeaud 1991; Quet 1993; Castelli 1999; and the contribution of Downie in this volume. Others (Michenaud and Dierkens 1972; Gigli 1977) have argued that the text is ordered by the logic of the dream. On Aristides' relationship to contemporary autobiographical writing, see Bompaire 1993; see also Harrison 2002, arguing that Apuleius is a critical response to Aristides' model of religious autobiography. On first-person writing as a 'technique du soi': Foucault 1997a. 8 See Pearcy 1988, 391: 'But the Sacred Tales record also the creation of a second text.. .It is the body of Aristides himself In its illnesses and recoveries, the medical history of Aristides makes up a narrative of Asclepius' providence and favor. Physical existence is transitory... The Sacred Tales, themselves, however, might endure, to present the complex interpenetration of reality by the word of the god and the transformation of the diseased and imperfect text of Aristides' body into the lasting text of the Sacred Tales'. See also Perkins 1992, 261 (= 1995, 187): 'In Aristides' representation, bodies become texts on which the god's purposes and intentions are written'; King 1999, 282: 'the creation of a story from the minute details of [the body's] physicality paradoxically seeks to transcend its materiality and make it into a sign of divine favor'. Pearcy, op. cit., 377-378 and Gasparro 1998 place the Hieroi Logoi alongside works by other imperial-age devotees of Asclepius. 9 Miller 1994, who finds in Aristides' ceuvre 'an insistent thematic move whereby oratorical writing and the symptomatic 'writing' of the body function as signs of each other, all under the aegis of Asclepian oneiric practice' (189), looks beyond the 'text' of divine favor to 'the symptoms of a rebellion against [Aristides'] culture's construction of masculinity', symptoms that articulate a desire for 'the intimacy and privacy that cultural codes denied to men of his standing and profession' (200). See also Brown 1978,4 on 'the unremitting discipline imposed on the actors of the small and unbearably well

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to bring the different layers of the Hieroi Logoi to light. They have also happily succeeded in shifting discussion from Aristides' alleged hypochondria to the historical meanings of the body and disease in both the cult of Asclepius and Greco-Roman elite culture; indeed, this work has made clear the very importance of the physical body as a vehicle of meaning in those contexts. Nevertheless, the conflation of Aristides' body with a text needs to be questioned for the reason that within the Hieroi Logoi themselves, signs and stories are systematically displaced from that body's surface. As Aristides recounts in the second book, the origins of this displacement lie in the failure of even the best physicians at Rome to make sense of his symptoms within the semiotic framework of contemporary medicine (Or. XLVIII.5-6, 62-64, 69).10 It is at this moment that Asclepius begins to offer Aristides another conduit of interpretation in the form of the dream, through which bodily symptoms are transformed into symbolic narrative. By restoring meaning to Aristides' sufferings, the dream allows Aristides to interpret and to overcome them, albeit

lit stage of an ancient city'. For retrospective diagnoses of Aristides' psychological condition, see Gourevitch and Gourevitch 1968; Michenaud and Dierkens 1972; HazardGuillon 1983; and esp. Gourevitch 1984, 22-47, recounting a long history of such diagnoses by both medical professionals and philologists. Cf. the remarks in Pigeaud 1991 and Andersson and Roos 1997 on the limitations of this retrospective diagnosis. For readings of Aristides as an exemplar of his era, see Festugiere 1954, 85-104; Dodds 1965, 3g-45; Bowersock 1969, 71-75; Reardon 197$ Brown 1978,41-45; Horstmanshoff 2004,332-334; andsupra,nn. 6-8. 10 That is, medicine that explains diseases and remedies primarily in terms of physical causes inside the body and external factors such as diet or environmental conditions. The relationship between secular physicians and Asclepian priests was often symbiotic: see Edelstein and Edelstein 1945II, 13g-140; Horstmanshoff 2004; Gorrini 2005, with nos. 18-19 [IG II/lIP 3798 and 3799]. Ancient sources saw continuity between Asclepius and the human physician, often casting the god as the inventor of modern medicine (Edelstein and Edelstein, op. cit., II, 140-141), and indeed, Aristides has high esteem for the historical figure of Hippocrates (King 2006, 261-262). Moreover, many scholars have detected similarities between Asclepian therapies and those developed in secular medicine, particularly as time wore on (Oberhelman 1993, 153-155; Boudon 1994, 165-168; Chaniotis 1995, 334-335; LiDonnici 1995, 48), and the two traditions shared disease terminology (Chaniotis, op. cit., 330 n. 38). It is also the case that Aristides was surrounded by physicians both in the temple precinct and away from it. Nevertheless, as far as he was concerned, Asclepius was always the true doctor (Or. XLVII.4, 57), and the theme of medicine's limits is a Leitmotif in the Hieroi liJgoi; for references, see Behr 1968, 169 nn. 23-24. For another example of an elite patient who resists being 'read' by the physician (though in this case the physician comes out on top), see the case of Sextus in Galen's On Prognosis (10.1-16, 14.650-656 Ktihn=120, 16-124, 22 Nutton).

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temporarily, a process that creates a story (Ollyygmpi], Or. XLVII.3) to be recorded in the archive. No trace of this story remains, however, on the body itself: its ability to 'forget' appears synonymous with its recovery of health. Recognizing both the forgetfulness of the body and the shift of signs from its surface to the dream can clarify its role within Aristides' epic project. The central argument of this paper is that the body, and particularly embodied experience, is metonymic of all that Aristides wishes to represent as beyond the public record and sometimes beyond words altogether." The tension within Aristides' double identity as exegete-narrator and divine protege is thus realized through the elusive figure of the body. I begin by examining how, as a result of a shift from the theater of the sickbed to the theater of the dream space, Aristides ceases to be equated with a body that serves as the passive object of medical interpretation and becomes a privileged interpreter of his mysterious sufferings." Yet if information gained from the dream must be mapped back onto the lived body, there is always room for error. Aristides quite naturally assumes that the body is fully transparent to the god; at times, he refers to found texts that imply the existence of another, complete divine text. Thus despite his advantage over other interpreters of his body, he often remains uncertain about how to interpret his dreams. Built into the Hieroi Logoi, then, is a sense that the body itself remains in shadow. In the second half of the essay, I approach the complex relationship of the living body to its story from the perspective of commemoration. Drawing on motifs that were important over half a millennium of the cult of Asclepius, Aristides appears to see the scarred or inscribed body as petrified in time without hope of renewal. This is not to say that he does not represent the body as marked in sickness; quite the contrary. Rather, insofar as the miracle of Asclepian healing involves

11 In addition to Or. XLVII.I, cited in n. 4, see also e.g. Or. XLVII.59 (O(Ja~ OMEL~:n:W XLVIII.56 (%u[,;m 1:~ oI6~ 1:'liv ELY) AOyL<JJ.lC!J AUf3ELV EV oI~ T]J.lE~ ~J.lEV 1:01:E;); Or. XLVIII.58 (citing Od. 3.113-114, 1:L~ %EV E%ELVU mlV1:U yE J.luihjOaL1:O %U1:ut}vy)1:WV avt}Q
~QLt}J.lY)OEV); Or.

see Or. XLVIII.22, cited below. 12 Theater should be understood in literal terms here. We have evidence of regular public anatomical demonstrations and rhetorical performances by physicians in the second century CE (von Staden 1994; Debru 1995; Perkins 1995, 158--159), and Aristides, as a rhetor, was well acquainted with the theater.

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the body's regeneration, that body is a poor site for commemoration. Writing happens elsewhere: in letters discovered in dreams, in the dream archive and the public tales, on votive offerings, and, most extraordinarily, on the bodies of other people. Aristides' body evades its stories, I suggest, not because it is subject to death, as is sometimes said, but because it resists death. The Odyssean slipperiness of the body in the Hieroi Logoi poses challenges of interpretation for both Aristides and his readers. Those challenges are important to understanding not only the relationship of the Hieroi Logoi to their putative epic model, but also Aristides' divided position as both that epic's preternaturally perceptive narrator and its elusive hero. The tension that results from that position may, in turn, help us understand why Aristides, whether we adopt a traditional biographical-diagnostic approach or the more recent approaches that situate him within his cultural and historical milieu, remains so difficult to pin down. He seems to display the familiar persona of an elite Greek of the Roman period while, at the same time, undermining all attempts to turn him into an example. Aristides has been called many names; he has been given many diagnoses. He turns out to satisfy all of them, and then some.

Interpreting the disease Dreams anddecipherment The chronological arcM of the Hieroi Logoi, as we have just seen, lies in the failure of the doctors first at Rome, then at Smyrna, to understand or to alleviate Aristides' polymorphous pain." No amount of purging or bleeding provides relie£ In the end, the bedside scene of ingenious decipherment of which Galen, a generation after Aristides, is so fond never occurs. The physicians are left in an aporia. It is at this point in Aristides' life, when medicine's trust in the body as revelatory of hidden truths-a trust shared by physiognomy and ethical selffashioning-proves misplaced, that the god steps in to open up another

13

n. ro.

On the literary tapas of being derelictus a medicis, see Horstmanshoff 2004, 328-329

AELIUS ARISTIDES' ILLEGIBLE BODY

means of understanding symptoms: the dream.'! The dream transforms not only the semiotics of bodily suffering but also the conditions of interpretation. We can begin to understand these transformations by looking at a dream recounted in connection with Aristides' near-death experience during the Antonine plague. That dream also raises the question of the relationship between interpretation and salvation. Aristides reports that as he was lying sick in bed, 'I was aware of myselfjust as though I were somebody else, and I perceived my body ever failing until I came to the last moment' (oih;w :ltaQTptoAouttovv el-tav'tq>, WO:ltEQ av UAAq> 'tLVL, 'Xat Uottav6l-tT]v U:ltOAeL:ltOV'tO~ olel 'toli owl-ta'tO~, EW~ EL~ 'tOuOXa'tov ~Attov, Or. XLVIII.39). At this point, Aristides turns towards the wall and falls to dreaming that he is an actor at the end of a play who is about to turn in his buskins. Asclepius suddenly makes him turn over so that he is again facing outwards; the dream seems to end. That abortive final act appears to signal that death has been averted. Translated into the terms of the theater, Aristides' brush with death suggests a relationship between the alienation from the self characteristic of illness and the self-interpretation that dreams make possible while also demonstrating his capacity, qua dreamer, to move between the roles of sufferer and interpreter. In the first phase, when Aristides is still awake, the body drifts away from the first-person speaker, an indication of impending death. In the second phase, however, Aristides dreams himself into the position of the departing player. Nevertheless, the dream's dramatic setting ('I seemed to be at the end of the play') still leaves a formal place for the subject of the earlier verbs 'I was conscious of' (:ltaQT]'XoAouttovv el-tav'tq» and 'I perceived' (Uottav6l-tT]v). That is to say, even as Aristides identifies with the disappearing body, the waking person who had been conscious of the body being left behind 14 Medicine's commitment to the idea that the symptom reveals truths of the physical body dates from the classical period (Holmes, forthcoming). This commitment is strengthened, at least in some quarters, by the anatomical investigations of the Hellenistic period. This period, however, also sees the eruption of debates about the physician's ability to know what is hidden and the therapeutic usefulness of anatomical and physiological knowledge. A useful overview of the consequences of these debates for medicine in the early Roman Empire can be found in Nutton 2004, 157-170, 187-247. Despite the epistemological debates among the medical sects, the interpretation of symptoms as expressions of an inner bodily truth continues to be the dominant model in the early imperial period, reaching its pinnacle with Galen (Barton 1994, 133-168; Perkins 1995, 142-172). Although dreams were used alongside symptoms in medical diagnosis, in Aristides they are opposed to the physicians' tactics of decipherment.

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now becomes the implied spectator of the dream performance and its imminent close. Finally, upon waking, Aristides again explicitly assumes the position of the spectator in order to recount both this dream and the following one, in which Athena appears and exhorts him to persevere. The dream thus translates the split self of the near-death experience into the relationship between performer and audience within the theater while shifting the weight of the'!' away from the audience to the performer. After the dream ends, the'!' again migrates back to the position of the watcher, who reflects upon the visions (O'ljJEL~) in which he himself appeared. 15 What is perhaps most remarkable here is that the situation dramatized by this dream, namely the actor's moment of passage from the stage into the 'real' world, implies that oneiric performance is crucial to life. For the actor's exit paradoxically signals not the reunification of the self-reflexive pronoun (E!!UV'tl'p) with the first-person subject of the verb, but impending death. We might ask, then, why the stage is so vital to Aristides. The buskins dream gives us the beginning of an answer to this question. In this dream Aristides already has a sense that he is on the brink of death, a sense to which the dream gives metaphorical expression by equating life with dramatic performance and staging its final scene ('I had come to the end', Et~ 'toiioxu'tov ~A:frov, Aristides says just before the dream begins). Even though the dream shows Aristides something he presumably already knows ('I am dying'), the very act of showing seems to release him from the crisis staged in the dream: the body left on stage remains in play, i.e. remains alive. The therapeutic value of the dream-stage makes even more sense when we consider that in a far more common scenario Aristides' sufferings are unintelligible, not only to the physicians, but also to Aristides himself For one of the basic premises of the Hieroi Logoi is that the body is besieged by invisible or mysterious threats: Aristides' sense that he has been violated is almost always belated; even then, he is usually in the dark about what has caused his symptoms. Since the tempests of Aristides' abdomen or his asthmatic attacks abruptly sever the reflexive pronoun (E!!UV'tl'p) from the first-person speaker, thereby bringing the body to conscious awareness as a mysterious, alien entity, they can be seen as variations on his near-death experience during the plague.

15

Dreaming is treated by ancient authors as a kind of seeing (Oberhelman 1987,48).

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Like the buskins dream, the dreams that comment on these tempests or attacks enable the body to be saved. Yet they do so not by simply staging the crisis of illness. In most cases, the dramatic format of the dream generates interpretation that gives rise in turn to therapeutic action. Aristides' projection of the self into the imaginative and dramatic space of the dream is consistent with his more general sense of the body as strange or alien in cases of disease. In fact, symptoms like dramatic pain or stomach trouble may simply exaggerate Aristides' more persistent sense of the inside of the body as a mysterious and strange place, vulnerable to violations that are not always immediately felt: even before symptoms, then, there would be a need for dreams to provide a window onto this hidden space. Aristides' perception of his body in these terms participates in wider Greco-Roman attitudes. Over the last century, the Freudian unconscious has powerfully shaped how we understand the part of the self that is submerged below our everyday perceptions, although the priority of psychoanalysis in this regard has been challenged in recent decades by genetics, medical imaging, and the flourishing of neuroscience and cognitive psychology. That the soul has its own hidden recesses is an idea found in some Greek sources." Yet perhaps the most opaque and most daemonic part of the self was the inside of the physical body, at least from the fifth century BeE when that body definitively takes shape as a place where disease silently develops." The trust of laypersons and physicians alike in diagnostic and prescriptive dreams suggests that anxious uncertainty about the hidden body was widespread, as was the desire to access this concealed space. 18

16 See Plato's remarks about the flourishing of repressed desires in dreams at R. IX, 57IC3----<4, although I would argue that the non-transparency of the soul here is developed on analogy with the non-transparency of the physical body. At the same time Greek ethical philosophy becomes increasingly interested in the opaque parts of the soul in the Hellenistic period. 17 See Holmes, forthcoming. 18 On the ancient diagnostic or prescriptive dream, see Oberhelman 1993; Holowchak 2001. Notice that ancient dream interpretation has typically been distinguished from modern (psychoanalytic) interpretation on the grounds that the ancients cared about the future, while we care about the past (Price 1990). The diagnostic dream (eVU1tVLOV) can be accommodated within this opposition, insofar as it sheds light on a disease before it breaks into the patient's conscious awareness (Oberhelman 1987, 47). Nevertheless, in the case of such dreams the opposition that I describe above between different kinds of unseen spaces in the self, i.e. the opposition between the modern unconscious and the (non-conscious) innards of the ancient material body; is

go

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Concern about the hidden life of the body is fostered by the rise and dissemination of naturalizing medicine. Despite the impasse of the doctors at Rome, access to the hidden life of the body-typically imagined along the very broad lines of the body described by humoral medicine-remains central to the Hieroi Logoi, as in the cult of Asclepius more generally in the imperial period. Thus at one point, shortly into the first book, Aristides recounts a dream in which the transparency of the body is literalized. Sitting in a warm bath, he bends forward and sees that the lower part of his stomach is in a rather strange state (:7tQOXEX:UqJW~ be Ei.~ 'to :7tQaO'frEv oQcPTJv 'tu xu'tw 'tfj~ XOLA.LU~ u'tO:7tW'tEQOV ()LUXELl-tEVU, Or. XLVII.8). The difference is that, in the cult, information about the body comes not from the body but from the god. Dreams help the patient see into his or her body by creating contexts through which its experiences and states become visible. The vague or imprecise feeling of the body as something strange is transformed into the perception of a concrete object, a visible anomaly, or an invasive act-that is, something that can be seen and understood by the dreamer. Aristides might dream that a bone is troubling him, for example, and that it needs to be expelled (Or. XLVII.28). A dream may make Aristides aware of the fact that he has been defiled (l-t0A:uvl}fjvm) even before he.feels violated (Or. XLVII.7). In one dream, Aristides is offered figs, but learns from the prophet Corns that they are poisonous; he becomes suspicious and vomits, while still worrying that he has not vomited enough and that there are other, unidentified poisonous figs

as important as the past-future opposition. Indeed, just as the twentieth century saw an enormous investment of cultural imagination in the idea that our secrets about our neuroses lie in our dreams, the popularity of diagnostic dreams in antiquity may suggest a similar cultural investment in the idea that the secrets of our suffering bodies lie in our dreams. w.v. Harris has pointed out that the widespread interest in medicalanxiety dreams in antiquity can be correlated with the far greater number of health problems that the average person would have faced (2005, 260). It may also be true that it was precisely because physicians validated the meaning of dreams as medical that so many dreams seemed to dreamers to be about the body. In recent centuries, this validation has no longer been forthcoming: compare to Aristides' interaction with his doctors the following exchange between the nineteenth-century belle-lettrist Alphonse Daudet, who suffered from syphilis, and his physician: 'Daudet told us this evening that for a long time he had dreamed that he was a boat whose keel caused him pain; in the dream, he would turn on his side. The persistence of this dream caused him to ask [Dr.] Potain if this meant his spine was rotting. Potain's response was to laugh' (Daudet 2002,6).

AELIUS ARISTIDES' ILLEGIBLE BODY

(Or. XLVII.54). The message of the dream, Aristides thinks when he wakes up, is to fast, although he suspects that some vomiting might be in order. Here, then, we begin to glimpse how the splitting of the self in the dream can counteract the alienation from the body most visibly realized in disease. The dream, where the 'I' is both actor and spectator, unlocks the mysteries of embodiment by bringing to light, at least dimly, the web of relationships and events in which the lived body is invisibly and treacherously embedded. Moreover, by situating embodied experience within a thicket of symbols, the dreams also show Aristides the remedies (UA,EsupuQ!!uxu) to counter the threats that he is constantly facing." It is precisely because the body, like Odysseus, is always beset by danger that 'each of our days as well as our nights has a story' (Or. XLVII.3). With the transformation of the embodied self into a theatrical player within a dream, then, Aristides' sense of distance from that self becomes the condition of his understanding of it. Like Helen remembering the toils of Odysseus, he is reporting in the Hieroi Logoi on the troubles of someone, or rather something, else. Indeed, although he is ostensibly narrating his own epic adventures, he sets out by announcing that he wants to talk about his abdomen (vliv bE w~ EOXEV 'to 'toli ~'tQO'lJ bTJA,wam :7tQo~ iJ!!a~ ~o'liA,o!!m, Or. XLVII.4). And just as Helen remembers cutting through Odysseus's disguise, Aristides recalls how he deciphered the mysterious suffering of the abdomen, albeit through the medium of the dream. Knowledge confers power: once dreams are interpreted, they lead Aristides to the appropriate therapeutic response. Dreaming of the trapped bone, for example, carries with it a sense of bloodletting; the fig dream prescribes vomiting or fasting," By determining how to act 19 :rtOAAU IlEV YUQ KUt UAAU E:rtEotiIlTlVEV 0 itEO'; EK 'tillv EqJEO'tT]Km:lOV UIEt KLVMvlOV ESUQ:rtU~lOV, ot mixvol VUK'tO'; EKUO'tTl'; KUt ~IlEQU'; ~(Juv, UMO'tE UMOL :rtQO(J~UMOV'tE';, 'to'tE /)E E:rtUVLOV'tE'; ol UU'tOL, KUt O:rtm:E U:rtUMUYELTl 'tL';, uv'tLAUIl~UVOV'tE'; E'tEQOL' KUt :rtQo,; EKUO'tU 'tOU'tlOV UAESLqJUQIlUKU nEL :rtuQu 'to'ii itEO'ii KUt :rtUQulluitLm :rtuV'toLm KUt EQYCP KUt

Mycp ('For the god signified many other things in the course of snatching me away from

the threats always besetting me, which came thickly every day and every night, some assailing me at one time, some at another, and sometimes the same ones resurging, and whenever one was freed from them, others attacking in turn. For each of these things antidotes came from the god, and manifold consolations both in word and in deed', Or. XLVIII. 25). 20 'For Aristides, dreams were basically staging areas for physical treatments... ' (Perkins 1992, 251; id. 1995, 178). Yet the dreams must almost always be interpreted.

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on the sick body, Aristides, not unlike his contemporaries committed to elaborate regimens of self-care underwritten by physicians, gains control over it. At one point, in fact, Aristides believes he could have expelled his disease entirely (nuauv E;E~UAOV 'tT]V vooov, Or. XLVIII.72) had he not been led astray by the 'evil council' of his companions, who persuaded him to adopt their own misguided explanations of the dreams." These companions, as competitive interpreters of Aristides' suffering (via the dreams), are not unlike physicians, and their failure of understanding reconfirms Aristides' identity as the expert interpreter of his own body. His capacity to perform this role is directly created by the shift from symptoms to dreams: Aristides alone, after all, has the claim to autopsy; he is the one 'trained in divine visions' (YEY'u!J.vua!J.Evo~ ... EV 'frEim~ (>-tlmOLv, Or. XLVII.38). These skills, it is worth noting, also establish his authority as the narrator of the Hieroi Logoi. Yet the 'evil council' episode also reminds us that Aristides' decipherment of a mysterious body, unlike the physician's, is mediated by divine signs that themselves require interpretation. Let us consider, then, how the substitution of a divine sign for a bodily one complicates Aristides' access to the truth about his body and the translation of that truth into the Hieroi Logoi.

Dreams andobscurity Aristides' dreams grant meaning to the sick body, yet they are also objects of interpretation. What this means is that his situation is even more complex than Helen's. For one thing, whereas Helen relies on her own intuition in the (direct) encounter with Odysseus, the information that dreams provide Aristides about his body's condition, and indeed the dreams themselves, come from a place as foreign as the disease itself In the warm bath dream, where Aristides observes the strange state of his abdomen, it is an unnamed person who has to tell him that there is no need to guard against bathing, because the aition of On the interpretation of Asclepian dreams through puns and wordplay, verbal and visual imagery, and analogy, see Oberhehnan Ig8I; on Aristides' interpretations of his own dreams, see Nicosia Ig88, 183-185. 21 The scene and language are Odyssean, recalling the episode in Book 10 where the companions open Aeolus's bag of winds. Although practices of dream interpretation were codified, as Artemidorus's dream book makes clear, and although Artemidorus makes a point of stressing how easy divine prescriptive dreams are to decipher (IY.22), Aristides regularly asserts his unique ability to uncover oneiric meaning.

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his problems has nothing to do with bathing. In another remarkable dream, Aristides imagines that some barbarians gain control over him; one of them approaches and makes as though he is going to tattoo him (M;uv :ltUgUOXELV Wi; mi,;ovtu).22 Yet rather than doing so, E:7tEL'ta 'Katl-Ei:VaL 'tOV ()U'K't1JAOV ofJ'twot !-LEXQL 'tOii AaL!-Loii 'KaL 'tL EYXEaL 'Ka'ta ()TJ rwc E:7tLXWQLOV VO!-LOV, OVO!-LUOaL ()E au'to O~1JaL'tLav' 'taii'ta ()E umEQov oo~ ovaQ ()LT)YELattaL 'Kat 'tOu~ a'Kouov'ta~ tta1J!-LU~ELV xat MYELV oo~ aQa 'toii'to a'i:'tLOV ELT) 'tOii ()L'ljJfjV !-LEV, !-LT] MvaattaL M :7tLELV, 't

Confronted with both the barbarian and his invasive gesture, we are led to see the origins of the disease as external to Aristides. More interesting is the fact that the diagnosis-oxusitia, "indigestion" or "foodturning-sour," as the later gloss shows-is of equally foreign provenance. In fact, it is the barbarian who delivers the presumably godsanctioned command to abstain from bathing. Etiological clues and treatment prescriptions are delivered by an 'attending someone' ('tLi; :ltugwv) with a better grasp of what has happened than Aristides himself." Given that the dreams arrive from a place outside of Aristides and given, too, that they are populated with shadowy informants, the reader of the Hieroi Logoi has the impression of a strange symbiosis between the invasive object and the divine message. I do not mean to imply that Asclepius is somehow responsible for the disease. Admittedly, there is litde question that a drama of salvation requires the continual breach of the body's defenses, and Aristides has been accused (or celebrated) more than once-including by his contemporaries (Or. L.27)-of stay22 For the translation of lTt[~w as 'to tattoo' (rather than 'to brand'), seeJones 1987; id.2000.

23 See also e.g. Or. XLVII.S6; Or. XLVII.3·

IL.I1.

The

'tL~ :n:UQIDV

is first mentioned at Or.

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ing sick for the benefits that sickness brings." What I want to stress here, however, is simply that the story of Aristides' suffering, which eventually becomes the text of the Hieroi Logoi, has its origins in a space as estranged from Aristides as the disease itself 25 That is, grasping the hidden experiences or condition of the body requires opening up channels of knowledge as mysterious as the passages through which the disease first entered. This knowledge is acquired indirectly within the theatrical space of the dream rather than directly rendering the lived body transparent or legible. By using dreams to decipher his suffering, Aristides, as we have seen, redefines his sense of distance from the body to turn it into an object of knowledge. Yet even when he is defined as a knower, Aristides is not fully at home. That is, if Aristides acquires knowledge neither intuitively nor, like Helen, through his own mitis, but through his relationship to the divine Other, neither self in the split-self divide offers much familiarity. Thus, although Aristides claims an authoritative position of knowledge about his body vis-a-vis other experts (physicians, companions), that position is always unstable on account of the gap that remains between what he knows and what the god knows. Moments of confident interpretation are interspersed with moments of doubt (should I bathe? should I eati')." Whatever Aristides might see of the abdomen, there is always more that the stranger who magically appears beside him can tell him. The idea of a stranger who knows more about the mysterious body than Aristides himself means that Aristides' identification with Helen, whose authority to tell her story is rooted in experience, is complicated by a more traditional epic model in which the access to knowledge is partial. Unlike Odysseus in Helen's story; who tells Helen all the purposes of the Achaeans (Od. 4.256), the body is never fully denuded of its secrets. And unlike Helen, Aristides' metis depends on a muse. As a result, we cannot reliably identify the 'attending someone' ('ttl; :n:ugwv) mentioned in the prologue who might be able to record what happened or relate the providence of the god. In fact, the mysterious knowing stranger is instrumental not only in the initial interpretation

24 Festugiere 1954,86; Behr 1968, 46; Reardon 1973, 84; Brown 1978,41; Gourevitch 1984,50-51, 58-59· Cf. Quet 1993, 243; Andersson and Roos 1997, 37· 25 Note that hieroi logoi are marked 'as spoken or written manifestations of "the Other'" (Henrichs 2003, 239). 26 E.g. Or. XLVII.7, 27, 40, 55-56.

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of symptoms but also in the composition of the story they generate. In the preface of the second tale, we learn that in writing the Hieroi Logoi, Aristides relied on Asclepius's assistance, since his body had long forgotten its pains and his original records of the dreams were lacunose or had been 10stY So the knowledge for the text in our hands also originates outside ofAristides. His task is simply to make this knowledge public. The incompleteness of Aristides' knowledge comes into relief against a master text whose existence is implied by the bits and pieces of other writing that appear in the dreams and elsewhere. As Aristides tells his foster father Zosimus within a dream, 'Look! The things I dreamed that the dream said I discover written in a book' ({tEuaaL, a MyeLv eMxo'Uv ovuQ, ei'QLaxw yeYQUl-tl-tEVU ev 'tqJ ~L~A.Lq>, L.69); on another occasion, he finds a letter, in which everything that he has been foretold in a dream is written in detail (Or. XLVII.78).28 It is unclear whether these discovered texts are anterior to the dream, thereby functioning as a kind of script. Yet they do imply that the dreams are part of a grand narrative of Aristides' life that unfolds under the sign of the god. To the extent that the written things that Aristides discovers often express divine truth, they model the faithful record of events that the Hieroi Logoi should be. Yet the writing of the Hieroi Logoi is troubled at the outset, even before the loss of the archive, by the challenge of understanding the body through the filter of the dream. Aristides' difficulties as an autobiographical narrator with epic pretensions stand out as the particular difficulties of someone trying to capture an infinitely

27 On the relationship between the archive and the Hieroi Logoi, see Pearcy 1988. See King 1999 on Aristides and the difficulty of writing about chronic pain. Aristides repeatedly draws attention to the problems that plague the composition of the Hieroi Logoi: the magnitude and the number of his sufferings defy calculation and transcription (see above, n. II); the archive that contained the decades of notes has been scattered and lost; indeed, it was patchy to begin with (Or. XLVIII. 1-4); given that Aristides began composing the tales late in life, in the early 170S (see Behr 1994, II55-II63), well after his first doomed trip to Rome in 145 when he was around 26 years old, he can remember but a fraction of his past woes; and his body has constantly interfered with the composition of its history (Or. XLVII.4; Or. XLVIII. 2). Thus, insofar as Aristides' past is itself a kind of alien wisdom, he needs Asclepius as a muse: the Hieroi Logoi are composed according to 'however the god should lead and move' (8:n:lOi; av 0 {}Eoi; am re Kat KLVfj, Or. XLVIII.4; cf. Or. XLVIII.24; Or. L.50) its author. 28 See also Or. IL.3Q-31; Or. L.I; Or. LI.45, with Pearcy 1988, 385-386. The discovery of a piece of writing that confirms the truth of a story is a topes (Festugiere 1960, 124-126). On the association of writing with special, often sacred, authority, see Henrichs 2003, 249.

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au'ta OW'tT]QLaV E:7tayyEAAO!J.EVa, XaL O'tL ~
of his," In his pioneering reading of this episode, L. Pearcy likened Philumene's innards to Aristides' own diseased body (1988, 387-389). It is true that she is cast as Aristides' surrogate. Yet the two also differ from one another in that Philumene's body is literally inscribed with the meaning of her disease and her death, which turns out to be the meaning of Aristides' disease and his survival. Philumene's dreamed body thus takes over the role of Aristides' own dreamed body in attracting signs

29 See also Or. XLVIII.44, another example of the life-for-a-life logic. These episodes have understandably attracted attention and are often interpreted as an unsavory sign of Aristides' megalomania or his psychological instability. Gourevitch places the substitution narratives in the context of contemporary perspectives on Antinous' death (1984,55, with nn. 77-78).

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that make the difficulties of the lived body comprehensible, but with a twist. For it is as if Philumene's serving as a site of interpretation in the dream, and specifically her conversion into a text, expresses her monumental act of substitution in the waking world, namely the gift of a life for a life. By assuming both the disease and the written word, Philumene also assumes Aristides' death, releasing him from the story that is for her both the first and final sacred tale. Philumene's body offers a site where Aristides' story and Asclepius's saving grace may be both staged (as in the dream) and recorded (as in the archive and the Hieroi Logoz). As a result of her gift her foster father understands (albeit in a limited sense) his own trouble and, most importantly, gains new life. A similar, less disturbing substitution that nevertheless also involves an act of inscription is found in an episode where Aristides learns in a dream that he will die in two days. The fate may be averted if he completes a series of sacrifices, makes an offering of coins, and cuts off a part of his body for the sake of the wellbeing of the whole (6eLv 6E xat 'tou oWf.ta'to~ av'tou :7taga'tEf.tVeLV imEg ow'tT]gLa~ "COu :7tav'to~, Or. XLVIII.27). Fortunately, Asclepius remits this demand and allows Aristides to substitute his ring (6mt'tvA.LO~) for his finger (Mx't'lJA.O~).30 By inscribing (E:7tLygu'ljJm) this ring with the words '0 son of Cronus' and dedicating it to Telesphorus, Aristides cheats death. The Telesphorus episode, like the Philumene story, points to the desire to protect the body from writing. For it is precisely the body's conversion into a textual surface that appears to preclude its regeneration. The fixed nature of the inscription is overdetermined as a signifier of the irreversibility of death, on the one hand, and the promise to remember divine benefaction, on the other. Philumene's fate and Telesphorus's ring suggest a relationship between inscription, memory, and death in Aristides' imagination. Such a relationship may seem, at first glance, counter-intuitive, given the fundamentally important role of commemorative tablets and votives in the healing events that take place in the cults of Asclepius and other healing gods. On reflection, however, we can see how the association of inscription with death might make sense in such a context. However speculative, etymologies of Asclepius's name in Homeric scholia offer 30 Compare Or. XLVIII.13-14 (the enactment of a shipwreck averts a real one); Or. Lrr (a dusting stands in for actual burial). Such performances may be seen to persuade the gods that the demand has been satisfied: see Taussig 1993.

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a useful point of orientation. Scholiasts commonly took the name to be the combination of the adjective <J'X,A.T]QOl;, 'hard, rigid', and the alpha-privative, the stated rationale being that, as the god of healing, Asclepius opposes the hardening and withering brought on by disease and death. Porphyry's account is paradigmatic:" 'to aaxEM~ O'T)!-taLvEL 'to a.yav aXAT]Qov. aXEAAELV YUQ EO'tL 'to aXAT]QO:ltOLELV, xal. 0 aXEAE'to~ 0 xa'teaXAT]XW~ <'lui 'tT]V aaaQxLav, xal. 'AaXAT]:ltLO~ xa'ta. O'tEQT]OLV !-tE'ta. ~:ltLo'tT]'to~, 0 <'lui 'tfj~ La'tQLxfj~ !-tT] Miv axEMwltm. (Homeric

Qyestions, a 68=T26g, Edelstein and Edelstein) Dried up means what is too harsh. For aXEMELV means to make harsh. Also the skeleton is that which is dried up through lack of flesh, and the name Asklepios comes from this word with an alpha privative, together with the word for gentleness, that is, he who by the agency of the medical art does not permit dryness.

Asclepius restores to life, as the symbol of the snake, capable of shedding its skin, suggests." In our earliest Greek poetry and philosophical speculation, in fact, we find the idea oflife as something aqueous, labile; in death, everything turns to bone." Asclepius is a god of suppleness. The very suppleness guarded by Asclepius, however, makes the protection of memory a crucial question. Every god needs poetry and myth to keep their deeds visible in cosmic memory. The problem faced by Asclepius, however, is not simply the ephemerality of action and event." For a god whose work lies in restoring to life, the site of his power is uniquely resistant to manifesting that work in any lasting way. Gods like Apollo or Hecate or Aphrodite might break into the mortal world via symptoms; Asclepius erases them from the body. Whereas health, like beauty, can index divine benevolence, nothing in it signifies

See also T267---268; 270-276. On the snake and the renewal oflife, see T70I, 703-706. 33 Thus Aristotle reported-although he is not necessarily to be trusted-that Thales based his idea that the primary element of the world is water on the fact that the nurture (trophC) of all things was moist and that coming-to-be required the moist (Metaph. 1.3, 983b6). Theophrastus conjectures that Thales privileged water as the principle of life after seeing that corpses dry up (Theophr. Phys. op. fro I=DKII A 13). Disease could also be represented in medicine, however, as the liquefaction and disarticulation of the body, an elaboration in materialist terms of the archaic concepts of 'limb-loosening' (A1J(JLI-LEA~I;) eras and death. See e.g. Archil. II8 0N), Sapph. 137 (LP), Hes. Th. 121, with Vermeule 1979, 145- 177. 34 Ephemeral events such as sacrifices or, in healing cults, the nocturnal encounter with the healing god, were often represented on votive offerings (van Straten 1981, 8386, 98; id. 1992, 256-257). 31 32

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its own history. Yet it is precisely the before-and-after that is important to Asclepius: the very absence of the mark on the healed body belies its history of sickness and the intervention of the god. We can contrast to the tabula rasa created by Asclepius's healing the almost imperceptible scar discovered postmortem on the body of the saint Macrina by her brother and the author of her fourth-century CE Vita, Gregory of Nyssa." Through Macrina's nurse, we learn that the scar, likened by Gregory to a mark (O'tLY!1U) made by a small needle, replaced a painful sore that had appeared on the saint's breast after she had prayed for healing. The scar is identified as a sign (OT]!1ELov) and commemoration (!1VT]!1oo'Uvov) of God's removal of the pathos (V. Macr. 31.5-7).36 The mark signals, then, not death, but the renewal of life under the aegis of divine power. Macrina wears the memory of this renewal on her own person. The difference between Macrina's scar and the Asclepian tabula rasa would seem to reflect a historical shift. For the interpretation of that scar takes place against the backdrop of Christianity's valorization of the scarred, wounded, and inscribed body in the first centuries CE, a valorization that departs sharply from Greco-Roman ideas about the corporeal mark. As a surge of recent scholarship has shown, throughout Greco-Roman antiquity a mark such as the tattoo cued subjection to a master, narrowing one's identity to whatever was imprinted on the skin and locking that identity against the passage of time." The tattoo can thus be seen as concretizing the surplus of power that licensed the more general use and abuse of bodies deemed subhuman by masters and governments and effectively canceled the individual's claims to self-determination." If we read Aristides' avoidance of the tattoo in the dream with the barbarians in this context, it is possible to see it as a promising sign for Aristides' eventual recovery of health. Through 35 See Frank 2000 and Burrus 2003 for discussion of Macrina's scar, which Frank reads as an allusion to Odysseus' famous OUA~ and a site for fixing Macrina's 'shifting identities' (s29). 36 Compare the representation of the martyr's wounds as 'God's writing' at Prud. Peri. 3.135,cited by Shaw 1996, 306. 37 duBois 1991; Steiner 1994, 154-159; Shaw 1996, 306;]ones 2000, 10; Burrus 2003, 404-408. The mutilated body could also be read in such terms (Gleason 2001, 7g-80), although cf Edwards 1999, on the valorization of Scaevola's scarred body in Seneca's letters. 38 For this argument in classical Athens, see e.g. Dem. Against Androtion 55; Pi. Leg. 854d. Aristides himself uses lTt[~w in the metaphorical sense of 'to defame', 'to abuse' (xat 'tWV !-lEV OtXE'tWV oMEva 1tll:I11:m:' ElTtL!;a~ 'tWV oa1J'tO'u, 'tWV b' 'EM~VWV 'tOiJ~ EV'tL!-lO'tU-

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WI

the spectacular performances of the early martyrs, Christians reclaimed the marked and tortured body as a site for the resistance to Roman power while at the same time investing the concept of subjection to a higher power with new meaning," For most Greeks and Romans, however, corporeal inscription was strongly associated from at least the fifth century BCE with slaves, barbarians, and criminals, groups lacking in the corporeal integrity necessary for self-mastery and the mastery of others, i.e. the integrity of the citizen or elite body. If Asclepian healing is to restore this integrity, it is incompatible with the mark. Asclepius's need for a site of commemoration independent of the primary site of his power offers one explanation for why he so often issues directives to create a record when dispensing cures.'? Ancient reports and archaeological evidence indicate that sanctuaries of Asclepius overflowed with inscriptions and votive offerings." Anatomical ex-votosboth molded forms and body parts executed in repoussee relief ('tu:itOL eYf-lUx:tOL, xu'tUf-lux'tOL)-have been discovered in healing sanctuaries throughout the Greek world, particularly from the fourth century BCE onwards." By doubling body parts in durable materials-recall the substitution of Aristides' ring for his finger-these votives commemorate

'to'lJ<; %ut 'tOiJ<; fm:EQ 'tfj<; %OLVfj<; EAE'lJ{}EQla<; aYOlvL~OJ.lEVO'lJ<; Lou %ut Q'tL!;U<; yEYEV1]OaL, ~d you never tattooed any of your servants, but you have done as much as tattoo those who were the most honored of the Greeks and who fought on behalf of their common freedom .. .' Or. 111.651, cited inJones 2000, 9-IO). 39 See esp. Shaw 1996. On the changing meaning of the marked and tortured body, see also Gustafson 1997, 98-I01; Gleason 1999, 305. In speaking of a 'new meaning', I refer to Christianity's interaction with classical Greco-Roman culture. Religious tattooing had long been common among other peoples (Gustafson, op. cit., 9B---99;Jones 2000, 2--6). 40 See e.g. IG IV2.1 122 XXV=T423; IG IV2.1 126 (E%EAE'lJOEV llE %ut avuYQll1jJaL 'tuum)=T432; tc, I, xvii, nos. 17-18=T43g-440. 41 Van Straten 1981, 78-79; LiDonnici 1995, 41; van Straten 1992, 27Q--272. For an overview of the anatomical votives found in healing sites across the Greek-speaking world, see Rouse 1902, 21Q-216; Lang 1977, 14-19 (votives from Corinth); van Straten 1981, IOQ-I04, esp. the catalogue on pp. I05-151; Georgoulaki 1997. Miniature molded body parts have been found as early as Minoan Age Crete. Although their function has been disputed, they are widely seen as some kind of a dedication to gods with healing capacities (van Straten 1981, 146; Georgoulaki, op. cit., 198-202). Anatomical votives begin to appear again in quantity with the rise of healing cults, particularly the cult of Asclepius, in the fourth century BCE, and they remain in use to this day in Greece. A representative corpus of inscriptions can be found in the testimonia gathered in Edelstein and Edelstein 1945 (e.g. T428, 432, 43g-441). On other dedications to healing gods, see Rouse, op. cit., 208-226; LiDonnici, op. cit., 41-47. 42 'tuJto<; EyJ.lU%'tO<;, IG2 II 1534.64; 'tuJto<; %u'tUJ.lU%'to<;, IG2 II 1534.65, 67.

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survival; like Aristides' ring, may have also been thought to enable it." Their suitability for memorializing lies precisely in their resistance to change. Fixity is also, of course, an attribute of writing," Indeed, a secondcentury CE papyrus fragment in praise oflmouthes-Asclepius, the preface of which bears remarkable similarities to the Hieroi Logoi, heralds writing as the most suitable medium for committing Asclepius's deeds to memory, while placing votives on the side of (ephemeral) sacrifice;" [nu]ou YUQ [a]vuthi!1u'W~ Ti [fr]uoLu~

b[OO]QEU 'tOY nUQuu't[L]KU !1[6]v[0]v aK!1a~EL KU [LQ] 6v, EqJl'tUQ'tal bE 'tOY !1EMOV'tU, YQUqJi] M aMvu'W~ xaQ[L]~ KU'to. KaLQOV aVT]~aoK[o]uOU 'ti][v] !1VT]!1T]V. (P. O:ry XI, 1381, Col. ix Igl-lg8=T331)

For every gift of a votive offering or sacrifice lasts only for the immediate moment, and presently perishes, while a written record is an undying meed of gratitude, from time to time renewingits youth in memory. Aristides' archive and the Hieroi Logoi similarly ensure that if each day and each night has a story, these stories are not lost by disappearing from the body'" Nor is the body compelled to remember them by becoming arrested in time. Thus, because inscriptions and texts stand 43 For the dedication of anatomical ex-votos in the hope of a cure, see Aristid. Or. XLII.7; see also van Straten 1981, 72-74, lOS; Georgoulaki 1997, 194. C£ Rouse 1902, 21
AELIUS ARISTIDES' ILLEGIBLE BODY

still, the patient can be recreated as a tabula rasa without the memory of Asclepius's deeds being erased. The case of Pandarus, found in the third-century BeE Epidaurian miracle tablets, suggests that the association between disease, corporeal inscription, and commemoration may have been part of the imaginative world of the Asclepius cult from an early point." Pandarus arrives at Epidaurus bearing tattoos (O'tLY!1U'tU) on his forehead. In a dream vision, the god wraps a band (or fillet) around the marks, instructing him to remove it in the morning and dedicate it as an offering. Upon removing the band, Pandarus finds that his face is clean of the marks; he dedicates the band, which now bears the letters (YQ
owed thee by his vow for his wife Demodice. But if thou dost forget and demand payment again, the tablet says it will bear witness', Call. Epigr. 55=T522). 47 IG IV2.1 121 VI=T423' 48 The anatomical ex-votos themselves, however, only rarely represent diseased body parts (Aleshire 1989, 41); I thank Christopher Jones for drawing my attention to this point. Note that 30.4, 30.5 in van Straten's catalogue are drawn from the problematic Meyer-Steineg collection. Some anatomical ex-votos are directly inscribed; others lacking inscriptions may have been placed on inscribed pedestals (van Straten 1992, 24g-250). 49 LiDonnici 1995, 26 reads the two episodes as parts of a single story, hypothesizing that the Pandarus element was a votive inscription to which a priest may have added the Echedorus component. 50 For the punishment motif, see also e.g. IG IV2.1 121 Iv, V, VIII=T423, with the comments of LiDonnici 1995, 26 n. 9 and 40 n. 3. Compare the similar pattern of transgression and punishment in the form of disease in propitiatory inscriptions found in second and third-century CE Phrygia and Lydia, analyzed in Chaniotis 1995. On the whole, however, the cult's emphasis was primarily on cure, rather than on blame and expiation.

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The tension between fixed memorials and corporeal renewal that I have been describing would have always been available to cult devotees for thematic elaboration." In Aristides' ceuvre it becomes a major theme. Even cases where Aristides does actively engage the concept of the divine mark end up confirming his larger commitment to the body's capacity for renewal. Early in the first book of the Hieroi Logoi, for example, Aristides dreams that a bull bruises him on the knee (Or. XLVII.I3). His most trusted physician, Theodotus, approaches and cleans (aVExattUQEV) the bruise with a lancet of some kind, and Aristides has the idea in his dream to tell Theodotus 'that you yourself made it a wound'." Upon waking, Aristides finds that his knee does indeed have a small wound. Rather than causing trouble, however, it seems to be beneficial for his upper body. Nevertheless, the cut disappears after the katharsis is completed. A longer-lived and more spectacular corporeal mark appears at the end of the first book. Aristides reports that a tumor suddenly appeared on his groin from no obvious source (an' aQxij~ oMEf.tL{i~ QlUVEQ{i~, Or. XLVII.62), as is true of so many of his diseases. Rather than telling Aristides to excise the tumor, however, the god commands him to endure it-indeed, he is to nourish it ('tQEQlELV 'tOV oyxov, Or. XLVII.63). And this Aristides does for four months, quite contrary to the advice of his human doctors. The tumor brings with it an incredible burst of creativity that leads Aristides to declaim from his sickbed. The flourishing of his talents suggests that the presence of a localized disease gives rise to a more general katharsis, as in the bruising episode. In the end, however, what Aristides chooses to stress in the story is the dramatic reversion of the marked body to unblemished surface at the point when Asclepius makes clear to him that the time has come to expel the tumor with 'some drug'. Naturally, the success of the drug in deflating the tumor causes the doctors to marvel at the god's pronoia. Yet they persist with their advice to Aristides, suggesting that he allow them to cut away the loose skin left by the tumor. Again, Aristides 51 Kee 1982 argues for a historical shift within the cult of Asclepius between the period of the Epidaurian inscriptions and the Hieroi Logoi. Yet it is the relationship to the god that changes in his analysis: Asclepius becomes more central to people's lives, rather than fulfilling a single role. The basic imaginary of the cult remains quite stable, although the motifs gather new associations. 52 See also Or. IL.47, where Sarapis appears in a dream with a lancet and shaves around the face, 'as if removing and purging defilement and changing it to its proper state' (olov AVl1a't' (upaLQoov xat xa{}aLQOlv xat l1E1:a[3uAAOlv Et~ 'to 1tQoai'jxov).

AELIUS ARISTIDES' ILLEGIBLE BODY

perceives his physicians' strategy as divergent from that communicated to him by the god, who has ordered him to smear egg on the skin, and he ignores them. The result of this godsent remedy is the disappearance of every last trace of the tumor, 'so that after a few days had passed, no one was able to discover on which thigh the tumor had been, but both were entirely unscathed (pure, clean)' (WO'tE OALywv ~I-tEQWV :n:UQEA:frO'Uowv oMel\; OLO\; r' ~v EVQELv EV O:n:O'tEQq> I-tTJQq> 'to qJ'ul-tu EXELVO EyEVE'tO, u"A"A' T]O'tTJV Ul-tqJO'tEQW xu'fruQw 'toL\; a:n:umv, Or. XLVII.68).53 The disappearance of the tumor dramatically demonstrates Asclepius's ability to return the body 'to its former state' (El\; 'to uQxuLov, Or. XLVII.67) and to make everything the same as it once was (O'Uvi)YUYEV :n:av'ta el\; 'tau'tov, Or. XLVII.68; cf Or. IL.47). Throughout Aristides' writings, erasure turns out to be closely related to a concept of regeneration that seems to deny the passage of time so central to the archive and narration more generally. Health is an absence of scars, forgetting, a washing away. I close by briefly looking at Aristides' commitment to endless regeneration in light of both the incompatibility between the mark or sign and the body and the ways in which Aristides controls and circumscribes the public representation of his embodied experience. Lethe and katharsis The concept of being remade in the wake of illness runs as an undercurrent throughout the Hieroi Logoi. Aristides, we have seen, often casts the causes of his suffering as foreign elements that have breached the boundaries of the body. Although the elimination of a materia peccans played a key role in medical concepts of disease from the fifth century BeE onwards, the representation of disease as something foreign was counterbalanced by the belief that disease was a process by which constituent elements within the body grew dangerously powerful. 54 Indeed, the idea that disease developed inside an individual body could be used to buttress the 'care of the self' as an ethical imperative." Moreover, 53 See Pernot 2002, 375 for a reading of the tumor episode consistent with the one I offer here. 54 The classic account of 'ontological' versus 'physiological' concepts of disease is Temkin 1963. See also Niebyl 1969, 2-II for the overlap of these concepts in Greek explanations of disease. For the medical idea of katharsis in the classical period, see von Staden 2007. 55 See, for example, Galen's arguments against Erasistratus's concept of causality

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the ethics of self-care eschews the idea of perfect unity: bodies naturally comprise opposed elements whose interaction must always be managed. Aristides, as we have seen, resists attempts to locate his symptoms within secular frameworks of interpretation. He thus implicitly rejects the premise that his suffering is the outcome of practices over which he might be held accountable." His strategy works in tandem with his representation of disease as invasive and hidden and the corresponding emphasis on cathartic expulsion and rebirth. Indeed, in his evacuation of the inner body, Aristides was often willing to go to extremes that expressly contradicted basic therapeutic principles of secular medicine, such as considering the strength of the patient when undertaking therapy'" When the noted physician and sophist Satyrus-a teacher of Galen's-hears how many purges of blood Aristides has had, he orders him to stop immediately, lest he overwhelm and destroy his body (Or. IL.8; c£ Or. XLVII.73; Or. XLVIII.3435).58 Aristides responds that he is not master (%UQLO~) of his own blood and that he will continue to obey the god's directives.59 Aristides' ability to survive the body's journey to the precipice of a void indicates his privileged relationship to Asclepius. Indeed, it is because he can endure the diseased body's destruction that he is granted holistic renewal, an idea that bears some similarity to contemporary ideas of martyrdom and resurrection in early Christianity, with the notable difference that Aristides wants life after death in this life.60 The myth of Asclepius, after in On Antecedent Causes XY.I87-196 (142,3-146,5 Hankinson) and Nutton 1983, 6-16 on resistance to 'ontological' concepts of disease on ethical grounds in the Greco-Roman period. 56 Asclepius does, as we have seen, command him to avoid certain foods or activities, so that the central imperative of medicine, 'watch out'! (lpUAa!;ov), remains in effect, as at Or. XLVII.7!. The difference is that no dietetics handbook or physician can provide the information Aristides needs: the threats to his health are unpredictable and changeable. 57 On the importance in imperial-age medicine of establishing the patient's strength before letting blood, see Niebyl 1969, 68-76 (and pp. 26-38 on the origins of the concept in fifth and fourth-century BCE medicine). 58 Both Aristides and Satyrus accept the effectiveness of venesection but they take different views of it. In medicine, bloodletting helps eliminate excess, rather than aiding in the expulsion of a foreign body (Niebyl 1969). Yet Aristides seems to think of bloodletting precisely in terms of expelling something foreign (e.g. Or. XLVII.28). 59 C£ Or. XLVII.4. 60 Perkins (1992, 254, 262-266; 1995, 180-181, 18g-192) draws the comparison between the martyr and Aristides; see also Dodds 1965, 42. In both cases, similarities arise from a shared cultural context rather than any direct claims of influence. C£ Shaw 1996, 300 ('the discourse in which Aristides is engaged .. .is distinctively his own, and is

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all, made clear the dangers involved when philanthropic gods pursue more radical forms of resurrection." In An Address Regarding Asclepius, Aristides casts renewal precisely in the metaphorical terms of primeval creation. a.AM Kat ItEAT] 'tou oWlta'tO~ ahu'i>vtaL 'tLVE~, Kat c'ivbQE~ Myoo Kat Y'uvaLKE~, :n:QOVOL<;,l 'tOU {teou yEvEo'frm mpLOL, 'tWV :n:aQu 'tfj~ qJl"oEOO~ bLmp{taQEvtOOV, Kat Ka'taMyouOLv c'iMo~ c'iAAo n, OL ItEv a.:n:O 0't6Ita'to~ ou'tooot (jJQa.tOvtE~, OL M: EV 'to~ a.va{t~ltaOLV E~T]YO"'ItEVOL' ~ItLV 'tOLVUV OUXt ItEQO~ 'tou oWlta'to~, a.AA' a:n:av 'to ow Ita OUV{tEL~ re Kat OUIt:n:~~a~ au'to~ ebOOKE bOOQEa.V, Wo:n:EQ IIQoltT]{tEU~ 'ta.QXa'La MYE'tm oUIt:n:Mom'tOY c'iv{tQoo:n:OV. (Or. XLII.7=T317)

But some, I mean both men and women, even attribute to the providence of the god the existence of the limbs of their body, when their natural limbs had been destroyed; others list other things, some in oral accounts, some in the declarations of their votive offerings. For us it is not only a part of the body, but it is the whole body which he has formed and put together and given as a gift, just as Prometheus of old is said to have fashioned man.

The representation of Asclepius's work as the gifting of new body parts, rather than the salvaging of old ones, lends credence to the idea that the votive transforms permanent damage (the diseased body) into lasting memory and, as a result, gives the patient a fresh start. Never one to be outdone, Aristides declares that, in his case, his whole body has been destroyed and remade. In On Concord, Aristides' experience of renewal is extraordinary because it has happened so many times. 'I myself', Aristides declares, 'am one of those who under the god's protection, have lived not twice but many varied lives, and who on this account regard their disease as profitable' (eyw I-tEv oilv xat au'tol; eLl-tL 'tmv ou btl; [PE~L(J)XO't(J)V] u:n:o 'tq> t}Eq>, &JJ.. a :n:OAAOUI; 'tE xat :n:av'tOba:n:oul; ~LolJl; ~E~L(J)XO't(J)V xat 'tilv vooov xma roiito Elvm AlJOL'tEAfj VOl-tL~OV't(J)V,

Or. XXIII.I6=T402; c£ Or. XLVIII.59).

located in a realm of ideas and rhetoric separate from that of the Christian ideologues'). Shaw dates the dissemination of Christian interpretations of the endurance-pain (and torture)-virtue nexus in the elite Roman world to the first century CE (op. cit. 291296). Thus while it is true that Aristides' stance incorporates motifs from the cult of Asc1epius, we can also assume his exposure to contemporary concepts of, and debates about, suffering and healing, given his elite education, his travel, and the cosmopolitanism of the Antonine Age. 61 In most versions, Asc1epius is struck dead by Zeus's thunderbolt for raising the dead (T66-8S; TrOS-IIS). Notably, it is Sarapis who appears to Aristides in a dream about the afterlife (Or. IL.48).

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The logic of regeneration shows up in dramatic ways in the Hieroi Logoi. In addition to continual purgation and innumerable enemas and bloodlettings, Aristides boasts of being operated on more than any other suppliant in the history of the Pergamene temple of Asclepius." These literal acts of cutting and reassembling vividly express the process that Aristides imagines takes place in less violent treatments. In the third book, N eritus, one of his foster fathers, dreams that the god tells him it is necessary to remove Aristides' bones and put in tendons, since the existing ones have failed (Or. IL.IS). Seeing Neritus's alarm at the prospect of such a surgical operation, the god gives a less shocking command: no need, after all, to knock the bones out directly and cut out the tendons at present; rather what Aristides requires is a change (&AAOLWOL~) of the existing tendons, a great and strange 'correction' (E:ltav6Q{}wOL~).63 To achieve this Aristides need only adopt the use of unsalted olive oil. What is particularly striking in the N eritus dream is the idea that starting over involves, in the first formulation, not the replacement of bones and tendons with new bones and tendons, but the replacement of hard (i.e. OXATlQ6~) bones with pliant tendons, as though the bones themselves were impediments to Aristides' reinvention (an idea that recalls the etymologies of Asclepius's name that we saw above). Despite the strong emphasis that Aristides appears to place on the foreign origins of disease, then, his belief in regeneration in fact exaggerates secular medicine's concept of a body complicit in the production of suffering. That is to say: it is not simply the invasive element that must be eliminated, but the damaged body itsel£ Purging the body's strangeness thus lays the groundwork for what is both a homecoming and a form of rebirth.

or re YUQ VEW)tOQOL EV 'tou'tlp OV'tE~ ~AL)t[U~ )tUL :n:UV'tE~ ol :n:EQL 'tOY i}EOV i}EQU:n:ElJ'tUL UWL 1I~:n:o'tE ~T]lIEvu :n:w 'toov :n:uV'tWV OlJVELIlEVUL 'tocruii'tu 't~T]i}EV'tU, :n:A~V yE 'IcrxuQwvo~, dVUL II' EV 'tOi:~ :n:uQullo!;6'tu'tOv 'to y' E)tELVOlJ, aMU )tUL oo~ U:n:EQf3uAAELV 'to )tui}' ~~a~ UVElJ 'toov UAAWV :n:uQuM!;wv... ('For the temple wardens, having reached such an age in that place, and all of those who served the god and held appointments in the temple agreed that they had never known anyone who had been cut up so many times, except for Ischuron, whose case was the most unbelievable, but that our case went beyond even this one, to say nothing of the other unbelievable things', Or. XLVIII.47). 63 In the last two orations, we find similar instances where what must be changed is the mind (Or. L.S2) or 'the dead part of the soul' ('to 'tEi}vT])tO~ 't'i'j~ 1jJlJxfj~, Or. LII.2). In both cases, change brings divine communion. 62

)tUL

'tU!;EL~ EXOV'tE~ w~oA6yolJV

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I have argued Aristides sees the lived body as resistant to both interpretation and the act of creating memory. The body is rather written into stories that are first staged in dreams then recorded in the archive. By interpreting these stories, Aristides is able to act on the body in such a way as to restore it to a primeval state of harmony in which the dissonance between an opaque interior harboring something foreign, on the one hand, and the person who suffers and seeks the meaning of that suffering, on the other, is eliminated, at least temporarily. The body is repeatedly released from death because, although it is recovered from obscurity through stories, it is never captured by any one story. At the same time, the slipperiness of the living body creates the need for a fixed text to memorialize the work of Asclepius. Even the casual reader of the Hieroi Logoi, however, cannot help but notice that that text does not always feel stable and fixed. It is often jumpy, elliptical, and defiant of chronology.64 Its disorder stages the breakdown in Aristides’ understanding of what has happened, the moments when he is unsure how to match representation to reality; its lacunae recall the breaks in the archive. The tenuous grasp that Aristides has on his lived experiences in the Hieroi Logoi confirms the body’s irrepressible strangeness that wells up in the gap between the dream and waking life, between the oneiric performance and the text. At other moments, however, what escapes narration is precisely the glowing plenitude of well-being that rewards successful therapeutic action. This plenitude cannot be captured by the negative figure of the tabula rasa. For the feeling of being restored to wholeness that Aristides describes after events such as the dedication of the surrogate-ring to Telesphorus have a positive charge.65 Such feelings are associated most strongly with ‘the divine baths’ that Aristides narrates, and indeed

Castelli 1999, 198–202. See Or. XLVIII.28: τ8 δ" μετ τοτο *ξεστιν εOκKζειν @πως διεκε!με&α, κα0 -πο!αν τιν Yρμον!αν πKλιν TμAς Tρμσατο - &ες (‘After this it is impossible to imagine our condition, and into what kind of harmony the god again brought us’). As D. Gourevitch has observed, the word Xγ!εια is found only once, at Or. L.69 (1984, 49). What Aristides gains following the successful implementation of dream therapies is described as <>αστ,νη (Or. XLVIII.35; Or. IL.13; Or. LI.38, 90). ‘Physiquement’, Gourevitch writes, ‘ce bien-être obtenu grâce à la faveur divine, est un état bizarre, qui n’est pas particulièrement voluptueux, mais caractérisé par un sentiment de chaleur intérieure parfaite, et d’éloignement par rapport au monde extérieur’ (op. cit., 48); see also Brown 1978, 43; Miller 1994, 203–204. A kind of relaxation or sense of presence may also attend moments of inspired oratorical performance (e.g. Or. LI.39). 64 65

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with all his encounters with sacred water.66 Like other events that exchange the damaged past for a unified and all-consuming present, such as the healing of the tumor or tasting the water from Asclepius’s sacred well, the baths are synonymous with lêthê: ‘So let us turn to the divine baths, from which we digressed. Let the pains, the diseases, the threats, be forgotten’ (νν δ4 @&εν ξ βημεν τρεπ,με&α πρ8ς τ λουτρ τ &εα· Pδναι δ4 κα0 νσοι κα0 κ!νδυνοι πKντες ρρντων, Or. XLVIII.71).67 In bathing, the body is restored to the conscious, first-person subject as a singular entity suffused with warmth and oblivious of all that is strange or painful. One famous passage in particular goes to some lengths in its attempt to describe the phenomenology of starting over: κα0 τ π8 τοτου τ!ς #ν νδε!ξασ&αι δυνη&ε!η; :παν γ ρ τ8 λοιπ8ν τ7ς Tμ ρας κα0 τ7ς νυκτ8ς τ8 εOς ε%ν"ν διεσωσKμην τ"ν π0 τF. λουτρF. σχ σιν, κα0 οNτε τι ξηροτ ρου οNτε Xγροτ ρου το σ,ματος Moσ&μην, ο% τ7ς & ρμης ν7κεν ο%δ ν, ο% προσεγ νετο, ο%δ’ α` τοιοτον T & ρμη _ν, οLον ν τFω κα0 π’ ν&ρωπ!νης μηχαν7ς XπKρξειεν, λλK τις _ν λ α διηνεκς, δναμιν φ ρουσα $σην δι παντ8ς το σ,ματς τε κα0 το χρνου.68 παραπλησ!ως δ4 κα0 τ τ7ς γν,μης εBχεν. οNτε γ ρ οLον Tδον" περιφαν"ς _ν οNτε κατ ν&ρωπ!νην ε%φροσνην *φησ&α #ν εBναι α%τ, λλ _ν τις ρρητος ε%&υμ!α, πKντα δετερα το παρντος καιρο τι&εμ νη, Sστε ο%δ -ρ.ν τ λλα δκουν -ρAν· ο[τω πAς _ν πρ8ς τF. &εF.. (Or. XLVIII.

22–23)

And who would be able to relate what came after this? For the entire rest of the day and the night until it was time for bed I preserved the state following the bath, and I sensed no part of my body to be hotter or colder, nor did any of the heat dissipate, nor was any added, but the warmth was not of that kind that one could obtain by human means; it was a kind of continuous heat, producing the same effect throughout the entire body and during the whole time. And it was the same with my mind. For it was no obvious pleasure, nor would you say that it was in the manner of human joy, but it was an inexplicable wellbeing that made everything second to the present moment, with the result that I seemed to see other things without even really seeing them. In this way I was entirely with the god.

66 The role of water in the cult of Asclepius (and in other healing cults in the GrecoRoman world) has long been recognized. For an overview of the different uses of water in the Hieroi Logoi, see Boudon 1994, 159–163. 67 See Or. XXXIX.2, where Aristides compares the water in the sacred well to ‘Homer’s lotus’. 68 Following χρνου, MSS. Keil prints χρωτς following Haury’s emendation.

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At such moments, the body becomes familiar without the mediation of the dreams, which are premised on self-estrangement in waking life. The outside world falls away, leaving only the divine embrace and a sense of inner unity.69 It is this experience of self-sameness—no part of the body, for example, is warmer or colder than the others— that is shattered not only by the disease, but also by dreaming and writing, practices that, as we have seen, are premised on self-splitting. In focusing Aristides’ attention wholly on the present, the baths stand outside of memory. To the extent that the baths stand outside of time, they are in a strong sense extra- or anti-textual: private and eternally present. Nevertheless, Aristides wants to narrate the baths and other such moments within the Hieroi Logoi. The fact that he does so reminds us that ‘the body’ of which I have been speaking is always an effect of the Hieroi Logoi, however much body and text are uncoupled within that work. When Aristides writes about his fully embodied communion with the god, he treads a narrow path between opening that relationship up to public interpretation and protecting the inimitable intimacy that leaves no place to the watcher, and between timelessness and commemoration.70 Following one outdoors bath, Aristides writes that ‘the comfort and relaxation that followed this were perfectly easy for a god to comprehend, but for a person, not at all easy to imagine or demonstrate in language’ (T δ4 π0 τοτFω κουφτης κα0 ναψυχ" &εF. μ4ν κα0 μKλα <>αδ!α γν.ναι, ν&ρ,πFω δ4 D νF. λαβεν D νδε!ξασ&αι λγFω ο% πKνυ <>Kδιον, Or. XLVIII.49). The Hieroi Logoi are a testimonial to experiences that Aristides insists will always lie outside the public domain, experiences that nevertheless could not be celebrated as indications of divine favor without Aristides’ willingness to speak and write about them. Aristides’ difficulty in sharing the comfort gained through the bath restages the singular nature of his original experience. Several compan-

69

See also Or. XLVIII.53; Or. LI.55. On the tension between the public and the private, see Miller 1994, 184–204. This tension can be sensed even more strongly against the backdrop of Albert Henrichs’ recent analysis (2003) of hieroi logoi, which were defined, Henrichs argues, by their commitment to the esoteric while also gaining fame, e.g. in the travelogues of Herodotus or Pausanius, as closed books. Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi, named through—what else?—a dream (Or. XLVIII.9), are cited by Henrichs as an exception to the rule (230 n. 71; 240 n. 115), although on closer inspection they appear to be consistent with Henrichs’ account of hieroi logoi. 70

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ions, for example, once tried to imitate his fulfillment of the divine prescription only to find that their bodies could not tolerate the extreme conditions that it required (Or. XLVIII.76).71 As on other occasions where Aristides insists that only he is capable of understanding what the god says and fulfilling his commands, that capacity is confirmed through the failure of others. On the other hand, Aristides’ troubles as a narrator cue the impossibility of setting into time an experience that is defined by its resistance to narrative arcs that posit beginnings and endings.72 Of course, these experiences are not, in fact, unspeakable, despite Aristides’ use of this literary topos. Indeed, Aristides addresses the crowd following his bath at Or. XLVIII.82 with a speech inspired by Asclepius. Still, experiences of inner unity lie outside the logic of interpretation that governs the experience of the body in its opacity, where opacity ensures there is always something hidden to be (potentially) known and explained via a boundless divine text. Moments of communion with the divine participate, rather, in an ongoing cycle by which Aristides has his stories purged and washed from him as a condition of the renewal of life. Even Aristides, however, cannot remain with the god forever. However much time seems to stand still within his states of joy, pleasure ends, pain encroaches, and the body is again taken up as an object of interpretation and narration: story follows upon story. Thus, the body is Odyssean not only in its toils and its subterfuge, but in its refusal to stay at home in Penelope’s embrace: no sooner has it become familiar than it is attracted into foreign territory once again, like Tennyson’s Ulysses, for whom ‘the deep / moans round with many voices’, beckoning him back to the open sea with its waves, its strangeness. Unlike Odysseus, 71 Although barefoot runs and wintry baths were part of the usual repertoire of Asclepian cures, as Marcus Aurelius indicates (Ad se ipsum V.8=T407) and Aristides himself acknowledges (Or. XLVIII.55). 72 Aristides elsewhere uses the experience of drinking the sacred water to capture a sense of speech that would happen ‘all at once’: τ!ς ο`ν δ" γ νοιτ’ #ν ρχ, D Sσπερ Tν!κ’ #ν π’ α%το π!νωμεν, προσ& ντες τος χε!λεσι τ"ν κλικα ο%κ τι φ!σταμεν, λλ’ &ρον εOσεχεKμε&α, ο[τως κα0 - λγος &ρα πKν&’ 5ξει λεγμενα; (‘What, then, should be the beginning (of our speech), or, just as when we drink from the well, raising the cup to the lips we never stop again, but pour in the liquid all at once, so too should our speech everything all at once’? Or. XXXIX.4=T804). That the sentiment is a topos does not keep it from participating in a set of motifs central to Aristides’ œuvre. Water, he goes on to say in the same speech, is untouched by time (χρνος γον α%το ο%χ :πτεται, ibid. 9).

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however, this epic hero travels without a scar: the past belongs wholly to the god and the archive. By displacing writing from the lived self, Aristides manages to keep his distance from his stories and, hence, to survive them.73

73

I am very grateful to Heinrich von Staden, whose critical eye and intellectual generosity have seen this project through from beginning to end. I would also like to thank Paul Demont, who supervised my mémoire L’écriture dans les Discours sacrés d’Aelius Aristide, as well as to the members of my D.E.A. jury, Alain Billaut and Danielle Gourevitch; Hakima Ben-Azzouz and Marie-Pierre Harder provided invaluable editorial assistance in Paris. Thank you to William Harris for inviting me to take part in the conference at the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia and for continuing to involve me in the world of Aristides, to Brent Shaw, and to Glen Bowersock, whose comments on the written version of this article greatly improved it. I acknowledge two Joseph E. Croft ’73 Summer Travel Fellowships from Princeton University and a Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors, which allowed me to complete this work under ideal conditions at the Institute for Advanced Study.

chapter six PROPER PLEASURES: BATHING AND ORATORY IN AELIUS ARISTIDES’ HIEROS LOGOS I AND ORATION 33*

Janet Downie Aelius Aristides begins the first of his Hieroi Logoi with what purports to be a diary of illness and therapy. Aristides suffers from digestive problems, and he sets out to offer a serial account of his condition: ‘But now’, he proclaims, ‘I want to reveal to you how it was with my abdomen. And I will give an account of everything day by day’.1 From the outset, descriptions of his night visions dominate the account, and as a consequence scholars have read Aristides’ so-called Diary (HL I.7– 60)—and sometimes the Hieroi Logoi as a whole—in the Asclepiadic tradition of prescriptive dreams and votive offerings.2 He writes, however, not from the sanctuary of Asclepius at Pergamum—his most famous haunt—but from his ancestral estates in Mysia, in early 166 CE, some two decades after the original illness that led him to his divine protector.3 And while the text is remarkable for the way it vividly reproduces

* I would like to thank William Harris for the opportunity to present this paper at the Symposium and for his assistance in the revision and editorial process. I am grateful also to Brooke Holmes and Ewen Bowie for their help, and to Christopher Faraone, Elizabeth Asmis, Shadi Bartsch and Ja´s Elsner for feedback on earlier versions. The text is substantially that of the paper as presented.

νν δ4 )ς *σχεν τ8 το Zτρου δηλ.σαι πρ8ς XμAς βολομαιk λογιομαι δ4 5καστα πρ8ς Tμ ραν (HL I.4). The Diary closes at HL I.60: τοσατα μ4ν τ περ0 το Zτρου (‘So 1

much, then, for the situation concerning my abdomen’). 2 E.g. Edelstein and Edelstein 1945; Festugière 1954; Dodds 1965; Perkins 1995. 3 Behr 1968, 97–98, dates the Diary 4 January – 15 February CE 166, based on references in Aristides’ dreams to events of the Parthian War (HL I.36) and to the presence of the emperor in the East (HL I.33; for imperial activities and movements see Birley 1966). Cf. Boulanger 1923, 483. The date of the composition of HL I is a separate question. Behr 1994, 1155–1163, argues that the Hieroi Logoi were written in 171. A persuasive case for the later date of 175 is made by Weiss 1998, 38 and nn. 55 and 56; cf. Bowersock 1969, 79–80. Conjectures as to the date of composition are based upon readings of two key passages—I.59 and II.9—but it is possible too that HL I and

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the uncertainties of dream language, the first Logos is, I believe, a deliberately public account with a rhetorical aim.4 Aristides is as much concerned with developing a professional self-portrait as with offering an account of divine medical care. In this paper I examine the rhetoric of Aristides’ self-presentation in a narrative episode from the first Logos. Aristides’ dream account at HL I.19–21 includes a declaration of his oratorical vocation that scholars have taken as key to understanding the passage. But previous readings have not offered an adequate account of what Aristides achieves by reporting this assertion in the context of a dream concerned with the sensual pleasures of bathing. I suggest we can appreciate the rhetorical point of this juxtaposition by considering its place within the broader narrative of bathing in HL I, and by reading the episode alongside moments of very similar polemic in Aristides’ Or. 33, ‘To Those who Criticize him because he does not Declaim’. In both Or. 33 and HL I Aristides draws on the precedent of Socratic self-portraiture as a way of presenting professional claims. At the same time, a comparison of the two texts also reveals what is distinctive about the Hieroi Logoi and its narrative of physical experience. Midway through the Diary of the first Logos, Aristides describes a dream in which he sees himself in conversation with an athlete, a youth in training at one of Smyrna’s gymnasia.5 The subject of their conversation is bathing—a pursuit which Aristides’ interlocutor takes to be an uncomplicated, self-evident pleasure. Adopting a Socratic pose, Aristides questions the youth’s assumptions (HL I.19–20):

HL II were written at different times. Dorandi 2005 suggests that HL I is the work not of Aristides at all, but of a later interpolator. However, his argument—based on the heterogeneity of this portion of the text and on its narrative confusion—is difficult to accept. For reasons I explain more fully in my dissertation on Aristides’ Hieroi Logoi, I take HL I to be genuine. 4 On Aristides’ realistic portrayal of the syntax of dream language see Gigli 1977, 219–220; Del Corno 1978, 1610, 1616–1618; Castelli 1999. Nicosia 1988, 181–182, suggests that the Diary of the first Logos has undergone little ‘secondary elaboration’ by comparison with dream narratives of the other Logoi. Cf. Dorandi 2005. Contrast Quet 1993, 220, who maintains that the Diary of 166 was ‘choisi et peut-être conçu pour être publié’ by Aristides himself. On Aristides self-consciousness about the compositional status of his text, and on his references to the ‘apograph’ see Pearcy 1988. 5 The setting of this dream in Smyrna is secured by a reference to the ‘Ephesian Gates’ at HL I.20. Cf. Cadoux 1938, 181. For gymnasia in Smyrna see Aristides Or. 17.11; 18.6. On baths as an outstanding feature of the Smyrnaean landscape, see Aristides Or. 17.11, 47.18–21, 29.30, 23.20. Cf. Yegül 1992, 306.

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α`&ις δ4 δκουν πρ8ς α%τF. τF. ΑσκληπιF. νεαν!σκον τιν τ.ν γυμναστικ.ν *τι γ νειον περ0 βαλανε!ων διαλ γεσ&αι, τ μεγKλα δ" παινοντα κα0 τοιατας τιν ς τ ς πολασεις το β!ου τι& μενον. δε!ξας ο`ν α%τF. τ"ν &Kλατταν oρμην εO κα0 ντα&α μεινον λοεσ&αι, D ν μικρF.. ‘ν μικρF.’, *φη. μετ δ4 τοτο λ!μνην τιν *δειξα κα0 oρμην εO κα0 ν λ!μνMη τοσατMη κρεττον, D ν μικρF.. συνεχ,ρει κντα&α @τι αJρετ,τερον τ8 ν μικρF.. ‘ο%κ ρα, *φην, πανταχο τ γε μεζον αJρετ,τερον, λλ’ *στιν τις κα0 μικρο χKρις’. κα0 :μα νενησα πρ8ς μαυτ8ν )ς κα0 πιδεικνυμ νFω που καλ8ν εOπεν @τι τ.ν μ4ν λλων ν&ρ,πων αJ Tδονα0 κινδυνεουσιν X.ν τινων εBναι Tδονα!, T δ4 μ" κα&αρ.ς ρα ν&ρ,που ε$η, @στις σνειμ! τε κα0 χα!ρω λγοις.

And again, I dreamed that by the statue of Asclepius himself a young man—one of the athletes, still unbearded—was lecturing about bathing establishments. He was praising large ones and considered such things the pleasures of life. So indicating to him the sea, I asked if it was better to bathe even in there, or in a small place. ‘In a small place’, he said. And after this I pointed to a harbor and asked whether it was better in a harbor of that size, or in a small place. He agreed that in that case too it was preferable [to bathe] in a small place. ‘Then it’s not’, I said, ‘a general rule that the greater is preferable, but there is also some charm in the small’. And at the same time I thought to myself that also if one were declaiming somewhere it would be well to say that the pleasures of other men risk being the pleasures of swine, but my pleasure is purely that of a man, since I keep company with—and rejoice in— words (logoi).

The dream contains a miniature elenchos on the subject of the size of bathing sites, by which Aristides exposes the absurdity of the young man’s assumption that life’s physical pleasures should be enjoyed on a large scale. Then, at the conclusion of this exchange, still inside the dream,6 Aristides gives an oratorical cap to the conversation in his own mind: ‘What are the pleasures of the bath house’, he reflects, ‘compared to the pure intellectual joys of one who dedicates himself to rhetoric?’ I will come back—at the end of this paper—to what ensues. For in fact, while he strongly censures bathing as ‘the pleasures of swine’, Aristides ends up making the surprising decision to indulge in the very activity he has repudiated (I.20–21). But to begin we should examine the associative logic of the dream itself. How does Aristides’ total rejection of bathing relate to the Socratic-style exchange that precedes it?

6

Implied by the phrase κα0 :μα νενησα.

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Scholars have noticed Aristides’ highly self-conscious expression, here, of his intellectual allegiances.7 However, the two studies that take some time to interpret the passage have concluded that the episode at HL I.19–21 is ultimately symbolic—either of literary aesthetics or of suppressed sexual desire; and neither offers an adequate account of Aristides’ deliberate conjunction of bathing and oratory. Charles Weiss reads the passage as an allegory of literary style, and dismissing the ‘long fast leap’ Aristides makes between the dream’s two parts, he focuses his attention on the logical conclusion of the elenchos—that there is a certain charm in the small.8 Weiss relates this to a literary aesthetic of smallness in Callimachaean terms, and suggests that it alludes to the plain style of the Hieroi Logoi themselves.9 Besides the fact that it is difficult to take the sprawling narrative of the HL as a study in literary miniaturization,10 there remains the issue that in his rhetorical comment on the dream elenchos, Aristides does not draw distinctions between different kinds of speaking or writing; rather, he contrasts the so-called ‘pleasures of swine’ with oratorical culture in its widest sense: logoi. Weiss’s reading does not address why Aristides represents the very broad categories of bathing and rhetoric as moral opposites. Michenaud and Dierkens, on the other hand, make Aristides’ opposition between bathing and oratory crucial. They read the dream encounter with the young athlete as representing a homosexual solicitation through which erotic energy is sublimated in intellectual pursuits.11 However, their overtly psychoanalytic approach misses the ironic humor at work here and precludes any recognition of Aristides’ deliberate construction of an ethical dichotomy between bathing and declamation. 7 Weiss 1998, Michenaud and Dierkens 1972. Keil 1898, ad loc. cross-references this passage with Or. 33.29–31; cf. Behr 1981, ad loc. 8 Weiss 1998, 50. 9 Weiss 1998, 49–52 takes the dream as ‘a symbol for the [stylistic] program’ of the Hieroi Logoi. He suggests that the Hieroi Logoi were composed as an essay in the ‘plain style’ as part of a bid for a position on the imperial staff (perhaps as tutor to the young Commodus) when Marcus Aurelius visited Smyrna in 176 during a political-diplomatic tour after Avidius Cassius’ uprising in the East. 10 When Aristides uses water metaphors to talk about oratory and writing, immensity and incommensurability—not an aesthetic of smallness—are the pervasive themes (e.g. HL I.1). On the rarity of references to Hellenistic authors in Aristides’ writings and those of his contemporaries—and the few exceptions—see Bowie 1989, 211–212. 11 Michenaud and Dierkens 1972, 88, take this dream as corroborating their hypothesis that Aristides’ oratorical activities are compensation for fear of real social engagement.

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To understand Aristides’ deliberate combination of bathing and oratory in this passage, I suggest we should consider two contexts for the dream: first, the therapeutic motif of alousia (‘abstention from baths’) that structures the dream narrative of HL I; second, the rhetoric of Or. 33, where Aristides characterizes bathing as a luxurious activity in order to highlight the ethical value of oratory. Dating to approximately the same time as HL I, Oration 33 presents the physical concerns of epidemic illness and of luxurious living as a testing ground for intellectual commitments. The thematic parallels help to show what is at stake in HL I, where Aristides makes the care and cultivation of his body part of a strategy for self-presentation.

Alousia From its first entry, the Diary of Aristides’ digestive complaints is framed by the god’s prescription for restoring balance in his body: alousia, ‘abstention from baths’.12 This therapy makes sound medical sense in the ancient context.13 For, since abdominal disorder was understood to result from an excess of moist humors, a ‘drying’ regimen was considered the appropriate corrective in some cases. But Aristides’ Diary does not, on the whole, record simple abstention from bathing. Instead he presents a long series of dreams that require interpretation and seem, in a number of cases, to suggest that he ought to bathe. The first of these dreams immediately follows Asclepius’ command of alousia (HL I.7):

12 ΔωδεκKτMη δ4 το μην8ς λουσ!αν προστKττει - &ε8ς (I.6): ‘And on the twelfth of the month the god prescribes abstention from baths’. Aristides uses the word alousia sixteen times in the Hieroi Logoi, all citations but one occurring in the first Logos. The only ancient author whose record approaches this is Galen (fifteen occurrences over his entire corpus). There are, of course, other ways to describe the action of refraining from bathing in Greek. In the Hippocratic context, for example, Villard 1994, 43 n. 9, finds the following verbal locutions: λουτρ.ν ε$ργεσ&αι/απ χεσ&αι, λουτεν, μ" λοειν. Alousia, then, is concise shorthand for the prescription. 13 Villard 1994, 52. Villard’s lexical analysis of Hippocratic texts shows that louesthai can indicate many different external therapeutic activities involving water, only some of which involved immersion bathing. In the Hippocratic treatise The Art 5, bathing and abstention from bathing (alousia) appear in a list of polar opposites that guide medical treatment—including eating much and fasting, exercise and rest, sleep and wakefulness and so on. In the Hippocratic Corpus, see especially: Regimen 2.57, Affections 53, Regimen in Acute Diseases 18. Bathing was believed by the Hippocratic writer of Places in Man 43

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janet downie After this there came a dream that contained some notion of bathing— not, however, without some doubt (though I did seem to be actually defiled [molunthenai] in some way), but it seemed nevertheless a good idea to bathe, especially because if in fact I had suffered this [defilement], water was necessary. Straightaway, then, I spent some rather unpleasant time in the bathhouse. And when I got out, all [my body] seemed full and my breathing was like an asthmatic’s so that, to begin with, I immediately stopped taking nourishment. After this there was corruption (diaphthora) from night onwards, and it went on to such an extent that it scarcely let up a little before noon.

Aristides describes himself as hesitating between the ‘notion’ (ennoia) that a dream of defilement signals the need for a bath, and a ‘doubt’ (huponoia)—since bathing would presumably be contraindicated by his digestive problems and by Asclepius’ previous instructions.14 The term molunthenai is rare in the medical context; here, in the context of dream interpretation and in conjunction with diaphthora it acquires, rather, a moral resonance.15 Although Aristides is not explicit about the details of his vision, we might imagine an excrement dream of the sort that Artemidorus and Galen both describe. Galen, attending primarily to how dreams index the state of the body, says that when a dreamer sees himself standing in excrement or mud it means either that his humors are in a bad state or that his bowels are full.16 According to Artemiand by Galen to help people obtain nourishment from food; thus, its opposite, alousia, was a logical concomitant of fasting. 14 This passage gives an example of the frequently complex syntax of the HL, by which Aristides attempts to render dream logic in language: narrative and interpretation quickly merge. 15 The medical uses of μολνω are limited: in his treatise on the composition of medicaments, Galen uses the verb to talk about colors that stain; in the Hippocratic corpus, the related μωλνω describes swellings that suppurate. Basically, μολνω refers to physical defilement, but this sense is easily extended metaphorically or symbolically to the moral sphere. Plato speaks of the person who is ‘defiled’ like a wild pig by his ignorance (Rep. 535e); Artemidorus investigates the significance for the dreamer’s social life of various dreams of ‘defilement’ (ii.26). Cf. LSJ (s.v.) for attestations of both the physical and extended (or metaphorical) senses. While diaphthora can refer to ‘corruption’ of a physical sort (see LSJ I.5, Aretaeus, CA ‘stomachic disorder’), in Aristides’ corpus its moral overtones (cf. LSJ I.3 ‘moral corruption’) are marked: see Or. 34.27 and Or. 29.29. Cf. Or. 33.30: φ&ορ (discussed below, and by Avotins 1982). In his treatise On Diagnosis from Dreams (VI.832–835K) Galen cautions that a doctor can err by interpreting in medical terms a vision whose significance pertains to a non-medical aspect of the patient’s life. 16 VI.835K: ‘For, those who dream that they spend time in dung or mud—either they have bad and malodorous and putrid humors inside, or an abundance of retained excrement in their digestive system’.

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dorus, however, whose interest in the interpretation of dreams covers the whole range of symbolic meanings, a dream involving excrement (animal or human) may portend sickness, particularly if the excrement stains,17 but as a symbol of impurity it may also pertain to a variety of issues relating to the dreamer’s social life.18 Although the Diary is oriented around physical concerns, Aristides responds to this dream as if it marks impurity: he takes a bath. Seizing upon water as a conceptual link between the social and medical realms19 he finds little success, as the bath leads to physical discomfort, rather than to successful regulation of the moist humors. Aristides’ account of his dream of defilement points towards a persistent area of ambiguity in the first Logos. As we have seen, bathing and abstention from baths might be explained in either medical or social terms. Just so, in spite of the explicitly medical framework of HL I, many of Aristides’ dream accounts seem concerned less with physical therapeutics than with social and professional situations.20 Several dream episodes accommodate both issues in the same narrative space.21 So, while Aristides’ preoccupation with bathing seems at first to belong to his therapeutic concern with alousia, it is also part of Aristides’ social world: a number of narrative vignettes in the Diary feature conventional bathing in purpose-built bathhouses. I suggest that he highlights this feature of contemporary health and recreation deliberately, in order to make an ethical point about oratory. Medical and dietetic writings of the Imperial period partly reflect the great popularity of public and private bathing facilities.22 Physicians like Galen offer nuanced and complex advice on precisely how to calibrate 17

Artemidorus ii.26: ‘…[excrement] indicates despondency and harm, and—when it stains—illness’. 18 Artemidorus ii.26 surveys a range of possibilities. 19 On Aristides’ eclectic approach to dream interpretation see Behr 1968, 171– 195, and Nicosia 1988. Such lack of systematization and consistency in the actual deployment of dream theory was probably common (Harris 2003). 20 Oratory is part of what Aristides refers to as the ‘secondary business’ (πKρεργον) of his dreams (I.16). For a sense of the ethical value with which Aristides invests oratory, particularly in the ‘Platonic Orations’, see Milazzo 2002; cf. Sohlberg 1972. 21 Other dreams that combine oratory with bathing: I.22, I.34, I.35. Dreams in which bathing is linked with a social scenario: I.18, I.27, I.50. 22 Fagan 1999 suggests that the increased interest in bathing as therapy in the Roman period was spurred by Asclepiades of Bithynia, who relied heavily on baths in medical treatment. On the rudimentary state of bathing facilities in earlier periods, as implied by the discussion of bathing in the Hippocratic Regimen in Acute Diseases 65–68 see Villard 1994, 43.

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bathing procedures to each health situation;23 Celsus also recognizes the wide dietetic and therapeutic possibilities of different kinds of bathing.24 It seems that bathing was such an important part of social life that there were perhaps few health conditions for which it was decisively proscribed. While Asclepius’ prescription to Aristides of alousia fits the logic of humoral medicine, then, it remains somewhat surprising from a social perspective. Aristides’ abstention from bathing would appear to be partly a principled, ascetic position—a possibility that his own writings, and those of his contemporaries, support. Artemidorus, for example, describing a progression from the primitive practices of the hardy ancients to more decadent Roman habits, identifies contemporary bathing with luxury:25 … But now [too] some people will not eat before they have washed, and others even bathe after they have eaten. And then, they take a bath when they are about to have dinner. And now the balaneion is nothing other than the road to luxurious living.

A similar apprehension about the link between bathing and luxury seems to underlie Plutarch’s cautious advice on lifestyle and regimen in his ‘On Keeping Well’: the bath is better avoided if you are in good health, he says. And while there may be a place for warm bathing in recovering from an illness, he emphasizes this is not to be overdone (131B–D; cf. 127E–F). The association of bathing with luxury made it a useful tool for rhetorical denunciations of contemporary mores, as we see in Philostratus’ Life of the first century sage Apollonius of Tyana. The model Apollonius makes philosophy his way of life, and his rejection of warm baths is the hallmark of an abstemious regimen of self-care: he disparages public bathhouses as ‘men’s senility’ (1.16.4).26 Similar principles are attributed, in this text, to the Cynic lecturer Demetrius, who waged a campaign against the excesses of the Emperor Nero partly by declaiming against bathing on the premises of the new imperial See Galen’s De sanitate tuenda III, with Boudon 1994. Fagan 2006, 201–202. 25 i.64: ‘Our distant ancestors did not consider [dreams about] bathing a bad [omen]. For they were not familiar with bathing establishments (balaneia), since they bathed in [tubs] known as asaminthoi. But later generations, by the time balaneia were in existence, considered it a bad [omen in a dream] both to bathe and to see a bathing establishment, even if one did not bathe. And they thought that the balaneion indicated disturbance (tarache)—on account of the tumult that arises there—and harm (blabe)—on account of the sweat exuded—and even mental anguish and fear because the skin and the appearance of the body are altered in the balaneion’. 26 Cf. Philostratus, VA 7.31, and Marcus Aurelius 8.24. 23 24

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gymnasium in Rome: bathers, he said, are effeminate men who defile themselves with extravagance.27 In brief, Aristides’ preoccupation with bathing in the first Logos belongs within a whole contemporary culture of the bathhouse. Conventional bathing in elaborate public and private facilities was a social institution of the imperial era that could be made to bear ethical weight. Aristides himself uses bathing as part of an ethical polemic in his Oration 33, ‘To Those who Criticize him because he does not Declaim’, and we shall see that this polemical text sheds light on the dream conversation at HL I.19–20, in which Aristides contrasts the athlete’s interest in bathing with his own intellectual pursuits. Professional Apologetics in Oration 33 On the basis of references to the Antonine plague, Or. 33 has been dated to around 166, which would make it roughly contemporary with the period covered by the Diary of HL I.28 In this Oration Aristides defends himself against accusations that he has been less than fully engaged in his role as a public speaker.29 Defining and defending his practice of rhetoric, Aristides argues, to the contrary, that his deep commitment to oratory as a socially constructive force is clear from the fact that he continued to declaim in Smyrna, even when the plague was at its height in 165.30 Inscribing his speech consciously in a Greek tradi-

Philostratus, VA 4.42. The core of Or. 33 is an apologia, perhaps intended for an audience of Aristides’ students in Smyrna (Avotins 1982). The addition of a prologue makes it an epistolary propemptikon, ostensibly for a friend of Aristides’ who is about to set out on a journey (on the possible recipient see Behr 1968, 102). The dating of Or. 33 is not secure (Behr 1968, 102 n. 22c), but references to the Antonine plague at 33.6 and arguably at Or. 33.30–31 (Avotins 1982) indicate a date after 165. Behr 1968, 102 suggests it was written before Aristides’ return to Smyrna in 167; contrast Boulanger 1923, 162, who dates Or. 33 anywhere between 165 and 178. 29 Some scholars have taken this piece to be a response to renewed attacks on Aristides’ claims to liturgical immunity (Mensching 1965; for the story of Aristides’ several attempts to contest public duties assigned to him, see Bowersock 1969, 36– 41). It is not clear that Aristides had such a specific situation in mind (see Behr 1994, 1168 n. 124 for a critique of Mensching’s hypothesis). Even if, as Behr argues, Aristides’ issues of immunity were over by 153, Aristides is nevertheless frequently concerned with defining and defending oratory as a profession, and especially his own practice of it. 30 Or. 33.6: ‘In fact, I have spoken to you about these things before, too, when the plague was at its height and the god ordered me to come forward. And what I am about to say is informed by the same intention—that you should know I did not think it 27 28

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tion that has Socrates as its source,31 Aristides calls his oration both an ‘apologia’ and ‘a well-intentioned censure’,32 and he borrows from the opening paragraphs of Plato’s Apology the first word of the defense portion of Or. 33: skiamachein, ‘shadowboxing’.33 Reprising Socrates’ assertion that his appearance before the jury is not primarily a consequence of the immediate charges against him, but rather reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of his way of life, Aristides constructs a fictional court scenario, in which he is compelled to defend his professional conduct against unspecified accusers.34 His defense is an ethical one: like Socrates he bases his self-portrait on claims that he has always been concerned primarily to foster the highest human faculties of intellect and spirit. In the apologetic context of Or. 33, then, when Aristides invokes the contrast between the pleasures of the bathhouse and the intellectual discipline of oratory, he makes a point about his own ethical persona. Conventional bathing is introduced as a sign of the degenerate luxury that is the opposite of all Aristides claims to stand for. Refuting the charge of failing to make public appearances, Aristides turns the tables on his accusers: they are the ones who are at fault for preferring baths to more dignified pursuits (Or. 33.25): Instead of going to listen to declamations, most of you spend your time (diatribete) around the bathing pools, and then you are amazed if you miss some of the speakers. But, it seems to me, you don’t want to tell yourselves the truth: that it’s not possible for people who love jewelry or who are attached to bathing, or who honor what they should not, to understand the serious pursuits (diatribas) of oratory.

Underscoring the contrast by his word choice, Aristides insists that wasting time (diatribete) at the baths is the opposite of responsible intelright to sit idle in those most precarious times. It’s other people who make declamation (logoi) a matter of small concern’. 31 Aristides’ deep familiarity with Plato’s Apology of Socrates is clear especially in his Platonic Orations (Or. 2 and 3; Milazzo 2002). Gigante 1990 briefly discusses Socrates as a model for Aristides in the Hieroi Logoi. Early on, Isocrates appropriated the Socratic apologia tradition for rhetoric (Ober 2004). On Aristides’ use of Isocrates see Hubbell 1913. 32 Or. 33. 34: ‘What I have said, then, is an apologia, if you will—or a well-intentioned censure (πιτ!μησις π’ ε%νο!ας)’. 33 Or. 33.3: ‘Shadow-boxing, I realize, is what is called for, somehow. For those to whom I should address what I have to say are not present’. Cf. Plato Ap. 18d. 34 He draws attention to the courtroom fiction: ‘I speak, then, as if these men were present and I were addressing them’ (Or. 33.5).

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lectual endeavors (diatribas). An immoderate dependence on bathing is as pathological, he suggests, as a passionate desire for jewelry. By way of contrast, Aristides sketches the responsible attitude toward bathing in a passage that makes reference to Homer. Although he was born the son of the Mysian river Meles—so the legend goes—Homer did not spend his life swimming idly about, the sophists say, but renounced such activities for greater pursuits (Or. 33.29): … Homer himself was not satisfied to dwell on his father’s banks and to swim along with the fishes who were his brothers (as their story goes), but rather lived a life so rough (auchmeron) that clearly he was generally satisfied with access to basic necessities. And baths that were improvised and, in fact, for the purpose of helping ailing bodies, as Plato says—those he accepted, but he permitted no further luxury.

Homer appears here as an ascetic model for the true orator:35 his ‘rough’ or ‘squalid’ way of life is, literally, ‘dry’ (auchmeron)—so Aristides once again links the parching effects of a regime of alousia with the ethical virtue of rejecting luxury. The legendary poet is said by his modern admirers to have accepted only baths that were medically necessary36—and even these were to be ‘improvised’, not taken in the kind of well-appointed kolymbethrai that Artemidorus refers to. Aristides’ portrait of Homer makes him representative of an old-fashioned austerity diametrically opposed to the sumptuous ease of Imperial-era balaneia that seduce Aristides’ degenerate contemporaries. Because of its associations with luxury, bathing appears as oratory’s opposite at the climax of Or. 33, when Aristides considers ethical behavior in light of the ultimate stock-taking—death. Aristides closes Or. 33 by encouraging his audience to derive their satisfactions from the best part of life—oratory of course. His image of the opposite, undesirable ethical choice now combines bathing with a reference to ‘swinish pleasures’ and recalls HL I (Or. 33.31): Take pleasure in the finest things of life as long as possible. So that if we are of the portion who are saved, we will be saved among the finest pursuits—study and oratory—and we will not be wallowing in our accommodation to the swinish temperament night after night and day after day. But if we are not [of the portion who are saved], the gain will be everything that each person pursued up to that point. Or, by the gods, is there some profit in bathing while one is alive ([an activity] that surely 35 Part of Aristides’ point is that contemporary orators themselves circulate these stories about their ‘ancestor’ Homer, but fail to live up to the model they claim. 36 Plato, Lg. 761c–d.

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janet downie awaits the deceased), but when it comes to oratory (from which one is necessarily debarred after death) it’s a thoroughly distasteful idea to take pleasure in this during life, both by speaking oneself and by attending when someone else is speaking?37

This statement of priorities—favoring the practice of oratory—is essentially the same as the one Aristides makes to himself ‘as if he were declaiming’ at the end of his dream conversation with the young athlete in the first Logos. Here, he reverses the expected distribution of pleasure and profit: intellectual activities are pleasurable, while bathing is a profitless pursuit that Aristides associates with ritual treatment of the dead body.38 In the context of a heightened awareness of mortality related to the crisis of the Antonine plague,39 Aristides urges his audience to avoid the kind of social degradation that so often accompanies epidemic illness and to make the finest human preoccupations their most urgent concern, whether they should live or die.40 By pointing to the fact that one can be bathed after death but cannot participate in the oratorical community after death, Aristides draws a clear distinction between activities that are purely physical and those higher ones that are mental or spiritual as well. The description of bathers as swine, rolling about in the mud, evokes a common image of the unregenerate mortal condition used by Plato in several contexts—notably in the Phaedrus—to describe the life lived without philosophy.41 Bathing, as Aristides’ opponents pursue it, is the inverse of intellectual elevation and spiritual purification. It is the pre-occupation of a non-initiate.42 37

My thanks to David Traill for suggestions on the translation of this passage. Compare the end of Plato’s Phaedo where, as he reflects on the dignity and immortality of the soul, Socrates takes a final bath as an anticipatory funeral rite. On allegorical interpretations of Socrates’ final moments in this dialogue see Crooks 1998. 39 Or. 33.30–31, with discussion by Avotins 1982. 40 Avotins 1982 argues that σ,ζειν in this passage implies physical survival of epidemic illness. He also reads φ&ορK at 33.30 as a reference to destruction caused by the Antonine plague. Avotins points out that Aristides echoes Thucydides here—specifically the passage in which he describes the effects of the epidemic on Athenian morals (Th. 2.53; Avotins 1982, 4). Thus φ&ορK also alludes, presumably, to the moral degeneration traditionally associated with plague (on this traditional aspect of plague writing, see Duncan-Jones 1996). Cf. HL II.38–39 and Weiss’s discussion of Thucydidean echoes (Weiss 1998, 69–71). 41 Plato, Phdr. 257a; cf. 275e, where written speeches, famously subordinated in this dialogue to face-to-face dialectic are described as ‘rolling about’ (κυλινδεται) indiscriminately even among those unable to understand or appreciate them; cf. Phd. 81d, 82e: ν πKσMη μα&!>α κυλινδουμ νην; Tht. 172c; Plt. 309a. For the association of mud with the uninitiated in Aristides see Or. 22.10; cf. Phd. 69c, R. 363d, Aristophanes, Ra. 145. 42 The connection between washing and purification was deeply embedded in Greek 38

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Socratic Posturing In Or. 33 we see Aristides using bathing and oratory as polarized ethical terms and drawing on a Socratic tradition of polemical self-portraiture in the context of epidemic crisis. The issues in HL I.19–20 are, I suggest, similar. The Hieroi Logoi, however, are explicitly concerned with Aristides’ own health, and so he faces the challenge of explaining how his therapeutic and physical activities reflect on the professional vocation he values most. We have seen that Aristides does not take Asclepius’ original command to refrain from bathing (HL I.6) as the starting point for a simple narrative of ascetic self-restraint. In fact, after his conversation with the young athlete at I.19–20, and after his round rejection of bathing as a swinish pleasure, Aristides’ dream goes on to describe (and prescribe—we are led to believe) a decidedly pleasurable warm bath (HL I.20–21): δκει δ’ ο`ν τατα λ γειν - νεαν!σκος περ0 το βαλανε!ου το πρ8ς τας πλαις τας εOς GΕφεσον φεροσαις, κα0 τ λος *δοξ μοι χρ7ναι ποπειρα&7ναι—πτε γ ρ δ" κα0 λλοτε &αρσ7σαι, εO μ" νν;—ο[τω δ" συν& σ&αι εOς Sραν 5κτην )ς τηνικατα σφαλ στατον nν κινεσ&αι… πορευμε&K τε, κα0 )ς oνσαμεν, πιστ ς τM7 δεξαμενM7 το ψυχρο πειρ,μην το [δατος, κα! μοι *δοξεν παρ’ λπ!δας ο% μKλα ψυχρ8ν εBναι, κυανον δ4 κα0 Tδ? Oδεν. κγc, “καλ,” *φην, οLα δ" γνωρ!ζων τ8 το [δατος γα&ν. )ς δ4 παρ7λ&ον ε$σω, πKλιν εiρον 5τερον ν &ερμοτ ρFω ο$κFω νειμ νον μAλλον. κα0 :μα γιγνμην τε ν τF. &ερμF. κα0 πεδυμην. λουσKμην κα0 μKλ’ Tδ ως.

At any rate, the young man seemed to say these things concerning the bathing establishment that was near the gates leading to Ephesus, thought—not least in the context of the cult of Asclepius, where water appears to have figured prominently (Parker 1983, 212–213). From early on, however, a distinction could be made between purification of the mind and purification of the body as, for example, in the inscription that is said (by Porphyry and by Clement of Alexandria) to have greeted visitors to the fourth century temple at Epidaurus: ‘purity (hagneia) is to think holy thoughts’ (Edelstein and Edelstein 1945, T.318; cf. 336). The distinction is a prominent trope in leges sacrae from the Imperial period, including a first-century CE lex sacra from Lindos (Sokolowski 1962, no. 108) that specifies one should enter the y λλ νFω κα&αρν); cf. temple ‘clean not through washing, but in mind’ (ο% λουτροι the verse-oracle of Sarapis (Merkelbach 1995, 85): ‘Enter with pure hands, and with a mind and tongue that are true, clean not through washing, but in mind’ (Yγν ς χερας *χων κα0 νον κα0 γλ.τταν λη&7 | ε$σι&ι, μ" λοετρος, λλ νωι κα&αρς). For broader discussion of this distinction and its implications, see Chaniotis 1997, especially 163–166. The metaphorical framework of religious initiation, to which Aristides briefly alludes here, when he describes rival orators defiling their vocation, plays an important role also in the polemical Orations 34 and 28.113–114.

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janet downie and in the end it seemed to me that I should give them a try—for when else indeed would I be so bold if not now? Thus, I decided upon the sixth hour as being the safest time to move about… We started out, and when we arrived, stopping at the cold pool I tried the water. And contrary to what I expected it seemed to me not to be very cold, but dark and pleasant to look upon. And I said, ‘Good!’ as if to acknowledge the excellence of the water. When I went in, I found in turn another in the warmer chamber that was milder. And at once I entered the warm chamber and began undressing. And I bathed with much pleasure.

In an ironic reversal, Aristides decides to bathe and asserts his ethical independence from the categories of intellectual and physical activity he has so polemically set out. He decides to ‘test out’ the dream’s apparent prescription in spite of his intellectual reservations, and the result is positive: a very pleasant experience in the bathhouse.43 In this episode, then, Aristides has begun the work of defining the physical practice of bathing in his own terms, setting aside its associations with luxurious indulgence so that he can appropriate it for his own purposes of self-portraiture. With the narrative of this transgressive bath at I.21 Aristides takes a crucial step beyond the basic dichotomy of bathing and oratory that played an important role in Or. 33. By claiming independence from the ethical schema set out in the preceding dream narrative, he prepares the way for the catalogue of extreme and paradoxical baths that will be crucial to the quasi-heroic healing narrative of the second Logos.44 For, once Aristides has defined his separation from conventional bathing through the narrative of alousia in the first Logos, he can incorporate this concept of abstention from bathing into a paradoxical physical regimen that combines outdoor plunges into wintery rivers, harbors and wells with taxing regimes of purging and fasting and with extraordinary intellectual discipline.45 For all of this he claims Socratic precedent

43 In his decision to ‘test out’ what the dream message suggests Aristides again follows a Socratic model: at the end of his life Socrates resorted to trial and error in the matter of the god’s command to compose poetry (Phd. 60e–61c: ποπειρ,μενος τ! λ γοι). On Aristides’ response to the dream Michenaud and Dierkens 1972, 88 comment: ‘Ayant affirmé publiquement son éloignement de tout plaisir sensuel dans le bain, il se permet l’après-midi un bain chaud et agréable, chose absolument exceptionelle dans les Discours Sacrés’. 44 HL II.24, II.45. 45 Episodes of extraordinary ‘bathing’ are described at HL II.19–23, II.46–55, II.71– 80.

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when he summarizes, at the end of his Diary, the kind of life he led during this period of illness (HL I.59): But beyond all the fasting at this time, and the even earlier [fasts], and the ones that I endured later that winter, I passed my days in an almost irrational manner: writing and speaking and examining what I had written. And I stretched it out usually into the middle of the night at least, and then on each occasion pursued my customary routines the next day, taking a correspondingly [minimal amount of] food. And when abstention from food followed upon vomiting this was what was encouraging: diligence and serious occupation about these [pursuits]. So that whenever I think of Socrates coming from the symposium to pass his day in the Lyceum, I think it no less fitting for me to give thanks for strength and endurance in these things to the god.

Aristides makes arch reference here to the Socrates of Plato’s Symposium: the Socrates who could drink copiously without getting drunk and share a bed with Alcibiades without compromising his principles—all in the same spirit with which he endured the physical rigors of battle at Potidaea, went barefoot, or regularly stood stock still, unaffected by inclement weather and deep in meditative thought.46 Already we have seen Aristides taking on the role of the philosopher in his conversation with the young athlete earlier in HL I, and alluding to the Socratic figure of Plato’s Apology in the ethical justification of his intellectual pursuits in Oration 33. Now, near the end of the first Logos we see Socrates invoked as the hero whose ethical seriousness is so solid it passes every physical test—whether of excessive strain or excessive luxury.47 Through the dream narrative of HL I.19–21 specifically, Aristides wants to suggest that, like Socrates, he moves beyond conventional moral categories.48 In this paper I have argued that at HL I.19–21 Aristides’ narrative has a deliberate rhetorical aim that can be understood, first, in the context of the broader theme of bathing and alousia in HL I and, second, with reference to Aristides’ professional polemic in Or. 33. The first Logos and Or. 33 both give moral weight to the motifs of bathing and abstention from baths, and in both texts Aristides alludes to Socrates as 46 Socrates will not be affected, whether he drinks little or much: Plato, Symp. 176c; cf. Krell 1972. 47 Symp. 174a (Aristodemus meets him—unusually—straight from the bath). 48 See McLean 2007, 65, on Socrates’ ‘peculiar bodily habits’ as a challenge to physiognomic approaches to ethical assessment.

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a model. In Or. 33, Aristides’ vocation as an orator—and specifically his professional engagement during the epidemic crisis of the 160s CE—is linked to a Socratic concern for the soul. In the Hieroi Logoi, Aristides has Socrates’ example in mind again, but in HL I he uses it to claim a certain kind of liberty in his physical pursuits. He articulates an ethic of alousia and bathing that will ultimately serve the larger apologetic project of the Hieroi Logoi, in which his intellectual vocation and physical experience are linked.

chapter seven THE BODY IN THE LANDSCAPE: ARISTIDES’ CORPUS IN LIGHT OF THE SACRED TALES

Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis In the late summer of 166 A.D., Aristides delivered a speech in the city of Cyzicus at a festival to celebrate the restoration of the temple of Hadrian, which had been damaged in an earthquake in 161. The speech itself survives in the corpus of Aristides’ writings as Oration 27, Panegyric in Cyzicus. We also have an account of this episode in Aristides’ Sacred Tales, a work written about four years later in 170/171 on the subject of the favours that he had received from the god Asklepios (Or. 51.11–17). I begin this essay with a detailed reading of these two accounts, focusing primarily on the treatment of the themes of travel and landscape, and how these are intertwined with the concepts of the body and the divine. Travel and the body are often explored separately, but when viewed in combination offer fruitful insights into Aristides’ outlook on himself and the world. I then go on to explore these themes more broadly in Aristides’ work, and I argue that they are significant throughout the corpus. This example of the use of the Sacred Tales to illuminate aspects of Aristides’ corpus finally opens the broader question of the relationship of the Sacred Tales to the rest of the orations. This question is significant not just for a nuanced understanding of the Sacred Tales itself, but also for the corpus as a whole. It will be suggested that viewing Aristides’ corpus in the light of the Sacred Tales reveals the author’s profoundly religious outlook. In the first four chapters of the Panegyric in Cyzicus, Aristides introduces the themes of the divine, his body and his oratory. The divine is established as central in Aristides’ statement that he is speaking at the command of the god Asklepios (Or. 27.2). His longstanding and ongoing relationship with the god is suggested further by mention of other instances in the past in which he has received help from the god in difficult circumstances (2). The theme of his body arises in the reference to

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his physical weakness as a potential impediment to making the speech; this weakness is said to be overcome on Asklepios’ orders (2). Aristides self-consciously draws attention to the activity of his speechmaking in the statement that he is extemporising—something which he was notoriously unwilling or unable to do—and he repeats this statement at the end of the speech (3, 46). This introduction is important, and sets the tone for the entire speech. It presents the orator’s motivation in delivering this oration, his overcoming of his physical difficulties, and the actual content of his speech as emanating from Asklepios. In this way the speech itself, its public delivery at Cyzicus, and subsequent readings enact (and re-enact) the divine / human relationship. Aristides then proceeds to a geographical ekphrasis (Or. 27.5–15). The divine element is first established in the landscape by a reference to the foundation of Cyzicus by Apollo (5). The structure of the description of Cyzicus mirrors the process of movement and travel in that it starts with a passage on the situation of the city (its broad geographical context), continues with a more focused section on the city and culminates with a specific description of the temple of Hadrian seen from up close. The process of describing, and indeed of mapping, is never neutral. But in this case, perhaps more than others, the description imposes a particular and one might say even peculiar geographical hierarchy on the landscape. Aristides first locates Cyzicus within a seascape: it is said to be located between the Euxine and the Hellespont, ‘being a kind of link between the two seas, or rather between every sea upon which men sail’ (σνδεσμς τις ο`σα τ7ς &αλKττης \κατ ρας, μAλλον δ4 YπKσης gν ν&ρωποι πλ ουσι, 6).1 It is also said to be located in the midst of three seas, Lake Maeotis (the sea of Azov), the Hellespont and the Propontis (8). It is an epicentre of travel for sailors (6). The centrality of its location both geographically and in terms of the movement of people is further emphasised by the statement that it is ‘located in the midst of the sea, it brings all mankind together, escorting some from the inner to the outer sea, and others from without to within, as if it were a kind of navel stone at the point between Gadira and the Phasis’ (τ7ς γ ρ &αλKττης ν μ σFω κειμ νη συνKγει πKντας ν&ρ,πους εOς τα%τν, τος τε π8 τ7ς ε$σω πρ8ς τ"ν *ξω παραπ μπουσα κα0 το?ς *ξω&εν πρ8ς τ ε$σω, Sσπερ τις Pμφαλ8ς το μεταξ? τπου Γαδε!ρων κα0 ΦKσιδος), the traditional termini of ancient geography (7). Moving on from the seascape,

1

Translations are by C.A. Behr.

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Cyzicus is then situated within the landscape (9–10). Centrality is here replaced by the concept of a perfect mixture of geographical features including mountains, plains and rivers. This first section is like a broad cinematic panning shot, an aerial view of the geographical context of the city. The camera then zooms in to focus on Cyzicus proper (11–12). Aristides plays with the idea of Cyzicus simultaneously being an island, a peninsula and a continent. This not only opens up the question of its geographical status, but also introduces the idea of transformational viewing. The causeways linking Cyzicus to the mainland are referred to as ‘legs’, σκ λη (11). This choice of word is interesting. It was used in the sense of walls, and in particular for the long walls between the city of Athens and Piraeus, by writers such as Strabo and Plutarch.2 This Attic association may have made it particularly appropriate in the eyes of Aristides. But its primary meaning of ‘legs’ should not be ignored. It implies viewing the landscape in the form of the human body and the close linking of the two. Aristides then refers briefly to the beauty of the public buildings (13), but does not describe them. Instead he presents his religious vision of the city ‘as the work of one of the gods’ (τ.ν κρειττνων τινς στι πο!ημα) and ‘sacred to all the gods’ (*οικε γKρ τις YπKντων εBναι τ.ν &ε.ν JερK): Sσπερ γ ρ κατ κλρους :πασι &εος ξMηρημ νη πAσα δ" μεμ ρισται, κα0 α%τ"ν οJ νε> διειλφασιν Sσπερ Yμιλλωμ νων τ.ν &ε.ν πρ8ς λλλους Xπ4ρ σωτηρ!ας τ7ς πλεως. &υσ!αι δ4 κα0 πομπα0 κα0 πρσοδοι κα0 &εραπεαι &ε.ν μετ τ.ν κα&εστηκτων &εσμ.ν … (Or. 27.14).

For as if it had been set aside and allotted among all the gods, it has now been all parceled out, and the temples have divided it up, as if the gods were competing against one another on behalf of the safety of the city. There are sacrifices, parades, processions, and divine services under established codes…

The land of Cyzicus is envisioned as physically made up of the sum of its sanctuaries, and simultaneously vivified by religious processions and rituals. Just as the topography of Cyzicus is effectively rearranged by the manner of Aristides’ description, so the citizens of Cyzicus are said to mould the landscape by exporting marble from the quarry at Prokonnesos to adorn other cities (15), and more significantly by the construction of the enormous and beautiful temple of Hadrian (17). The use of 2

E.g. Strabo 9.1.15; Plutarch Kimon 13.

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marble from Prokonnesos for the construction of this temple is envisaged in terms of the transferral of most of the island of Prokonnesos to Cyzicus. Not only is Prokonnesos reduced in this way, but the outline of the land is radically altered by the new temple: πρτερον μ4ν γ ρ τ.ν νσων τας κορυφας τεκμα!ροντο οJ πλ οντες, Κζικος qδε, Προκννησος α[τη, τ.ν λλων gν $δοι τις· νν δ4 - νεcς ντ0 τ.ν Pρ.ν ρκε, κα0 μνοις Xμν ο%δ4ν δε λαμπτρων ο%δ4 πυρσ.ν ο%δ4 πργων πρ8ς το?ς κατα!ροντας, λλ’ - νεcς πληρ.ν :παν τ8 -ρ,μενον τν τε πλιν κα0 τ"ν μεγαλοψυχ!αν τ.ν χντων α%τ"ν -μο δηλο, κα0 τοσοτος sν καλλ!ων στ0ν D με!ζων (Or. 27.17).

Formerly sailors used to judge their position by the peaks of the islands, ‘Here is Cyzicus’, ‘This is Prokonnesos’, and whatever other island one beheld. But now the temple is equal to the mountains, and you alone have no need for beacons, signal fires, and towers for those putting into port. But the temple fills every vista, and at the same time reveals the city and the magnanimity of its inhabitants. And although it is so great, its beauty exceeds its size.

The human intervention in the landscape of Cyzicus is here experienced through the process of travel, specifically through sailing. The section on the temple proper is not a systematic description of the kind Pausanias gives in his Description of Greece, much less so of the kind found in modern guidebooks. Instead it conveys the size, beauty and awesome nature of the building through a series of metaphors that transform the temple: φα!ης #ν τ.ν μ4ν λ!&ων 5καστον ντ0 νεc το παντ8ς εBναι, τ8ν δ4 νεcν ντ0 το παντ8ς περιβλου, τ8ν δ’ α` περ!βολον το νεc πλεως ποχρ.ντα γ!γνεσ&αι. εO δ4 βολει τ τ7ς <>αστ,νης κα0 τρυφ7ς, ντ0 γ ρ τ.ν οOκι.ν τ.ν τριωρφων κα0 τ.ν τριρων πKρεστιν -ρAν νεcν τ8ν μ γιστον, τ.ν μ4ν λλων πολλαπλασ!ονα, α%τ8ν δ4 τριπλον τM7 φσει. τ μ4ν γ ρ α%το κατKγεις στι & α, τ δ’ XπερF.ος, μ ση δ4 T νενομισμ νη. δρμοι δ4 Xπ8 γ7ν τε κα0 κρεμαστο0 δι’ α%το δικοντες κκλFω, Sσπερ ο%κ ν προσ&κης μ ρει, λλ’ ξεπ!τηδες εBναι δρμοι πεποιημ νοι (Or. 27.19–20).

You would say that each of the stones was meant to be the whole temple, and the temple the whole precinct, and again that the temple’s precinct was big enough to be a city. If you wish to consider the comfort and luxury which it provides, it is possible to view this very great temple like three-storied houses or like three-decked ships, many times greater than other temples, and itself of a threefold nature. For part of the spectacle is subterranean, part on an upper storey, and part in between in the usual position. There are walks which traverse it all about, underground and hanging, as it were made not as an additional adornment, but actually to be walks.

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This series of comparisons has the effect of playing with the relative dimensions of the temple in the mind of the audience, effectively suggesting a series of magnifications to the effect that that each stone is the size of the entire temple, the temple the size of the precinct, and the precinct as large as a whole city. The height of the temple and its occupation of the air, the surface of the earth and underground is conveyed by offering the audience the vision of the temple transformed into ‘three-storied houses’ or ‘three-decked ships’, and the emphasis on the activity of viewing the building is suggested by the use of the term & α ‘spectacle’. The passage is revelatory in its description of the underground area of the temple which, according to the archaeological evidence, was neither visible nor accessible.3 Finally Aristides chooses to highlight the walkways that traverse the temple and are actually in use, and in this way suggests the experience of sacred space through physical movement. A large portion of the speech is then devoted to praise of the ruling emperors Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, dwelling in particular on the concord between the two rulers (22–39). In this respect Aristides’ speech mirrors the temple, as both oration and building celebrate the figure of the emperor. Finally the speech seems to come full circle in its return to the theme of the city of Cyzicus in a series of comparisons between the concord of the emperors and the concord of the universe and of cities (35, 41), between good order in a man’s life and in a city (41), and the appellation of all cities as ‘sisters’ δελφα! (44). In these parallels Aristides employs the analogy of city and person, not unlike the earlier vision of the landscape as the human body (11). I turn now to the Sacred Tales, to consider Aristides’ account of delivering this oration in Cyzicus (Or. 51.11–17). The story opens with a chronological reference that locates the episode within the timeframe of the Sacred Tales narrative (‘after a little under a year and a month’); there is also a reference to the festival at Cyzicus called the ‘Sacred Month of the Temple’. There follows a description of Aristides’ physical condition, his troubled sleep and inability to digest anything (11). In this state he receives a revelatory dream in which the doctor Porphyrio praises him to the citizens of Cyzicus and encourages them to gather and listen to him speaking—an echo of the Homeric episode in which Athena persuades the Phaeacians to assemble and listen to Odysseus— 3 On the archaeological evidence of the temple see Schulz and Winter (1990) and Price (1984), 251–252, catalogue entry.

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and then Aristides finds himself in a theatre (12).4 This dream prompts him to depart immediately for Cyzicus. We are told a number of details relating to the journey: there is mention of the order to the servants to pack, the time of departure, the mode of transport (riding in a carriage), the leisurely pace of the journey. Aristides then describes his arrival at some warm springs, but being forced to continue his journey with a few attendants because it was so crowded that he could find no shelter (13). Aristides then arrives at a village, and we are given the precise distance traversed (40 stades). He decides to proceed, riding on into the night, but is forced to stop by a lake because his servants are exhausted. Again precise distances are given: the night stop was 120 stades from Cyzicus, and he had already completed 320 stades (14). Aristides offers a detailed description of the furniture in the room in which he spends the night and comments on its cleanliness; he is equally concerned to give an account of his bodily state: he is thirsty and dusty, and spends most of the night sitting on the couch in his travelling clothes. He then relates in a tone of triumph that at daybreak he got up on his own and finished the journey (15). Both the details of the journey and of Aristides’ physical state are presented as significant indicators of divine charis in the light of the initial revelatory dream. Aristides’ insistence on these details, including minutiae relating to his body such as the state of his travel clothes, indicate the profoundly physical way in which this journey was experienced. The initial statement about his poor health also overshadows the narrative: his ability to endure such a tiring journey despite his inability to sleep and eat is also implied to be the result of divine favour. But it is not only through his body that Aristides receives divine favour on this journey: his oratory is also encompassed. And here we come to climax of the story, the passage about composing and delivering Oration 27: κα! μοι παραμ&ιον _ν της πορε!ας τ8 τF. λγFω προσ χειν, ]ν *δει τος Κυζικηνος πιδεξαι κατ τ"ν το νυπν!ου φμην· Sστε κα0 ποι&η ο[τω παρ τ"ν -δ8ν τ εXρισκμενα αOε0 ναλαμβKνοντι. τ"ν μ4ν ο`ν σπουδ"ν τ"ν συμβAσαν περ0 τ8ν λγον ο% μνον Tν!κα δε!κνυτο ν τF. βουλευτηρ!Fω, λλ κα0 [στερον ν τM7 πανηγρει, εOδεεν #ν οJ παραγενμενοι κα0 οJ τοτων κοσαντες, μο0 δ’ ο%χ qδιον ν τος τοιοτοις διατρ!βειν (Or.

51.16).

4

See Odyssey VIII.1–25.

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And my consolation for the journey was in giving my attention to the speech which I had to present to the Cyzicenes in accordance with the prophecy of the dream, so that I even composed it in this way, always recalling the ideas which I had conceived during the trip. Those who were present, and those who heard about it from these, would know the enthusiasm which was shown toward my speech, not only when it was presented in the Council Chamber, but also at the festival. But it is not so pleasant for me to linger over such things.

The threads are here interwoven very tightly. Aristides was undertaking the journey to Cyzicus on account of a revelatory dream; his consolation during the arduous journey was to turn his mind to the speech; the actual speech was later composed by recalling ideas he had conceived during the journey; and it was a great success, delivered not once but twice. The divine, his body and his oratory are intimately connected. The story concludes with an account of the return journey to his estate at Laneion. The god’s command for him to set off is experienced as a refrain praising the water at his estate. He notes that his return journey was similar to the journey to Cyzicus: in both cases he left on the same day he received the divine command, at about the same time, and both journeys were uninterrupted. We are given the specific time of arrival at an outlying farm on his estate, a mention of the fact that he had not eaten, the total distance travelled (400 stades) and that he arrived the next day at Laneion (17). He concludes the story with the statement ‘And thus took place my first journey to Cyzicus and my stay there’ (κα0 τ μ4ν τ7ς προτ ρας εOς Κζικον ξδου κα0 διατριβ7ς ο[τως *σχεν, 18). Aristides’ decision to include the rather uneventful return journey and not end on the note of oratorical triumph in Cyzicus is interesting. Fundamentally it can be explained by the fact that the return journey no less than the journey to Cyzicus was ordered by the god and its successful accomplishment is ascribed to him. This journey also, then, is one of the many divine favours bestowed by Asklepios, for which Aristides is giving thanks through the composition of the Sacred Tales. But it also reflects the importance of the journey as a round trip, there and back. The Cyzicus episode is presented as a sacred journey, undertaken at the command of the god, and the Sacred Tales as a whole can be read as a series of such sacred journeys. As a literary retrospective narrative of these events, the Sacred Tales can with justice be called a pilgrimage text. The fact that Christian and Islamic models of pilgrimage differ from Graeco-Roman ones, for example, in the emphasis on one major journey to a sacred centre

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and on the penitential dimension, should not prevent us from identifying it as such.5 Oration 27 is a public speech, delivered at a civic festival and subsequently published; the Sacred Tales may have reached a smaller number of people—there is no indication that it was delivered to a mass audience—but there is evidence to suggest that it was published, and in this sense it is also a public text. It is self-conscious and polished and by no means private musings, as has sometimes been thought. It is, however, concerned with matters very personal to Aristides: divine epiphanies and communications vouchsafed him, the internal processes of his body, the processes of composition of his speeches. In the account of the journey to Cyzicus we have the inside story, literally, a narrative relating to the interior of Aristides’ body (his digestion and sleep) and the internal processes of his mind (including the interpretation of revelatory dreams, his intentions during the journey, the subject of his thoughts, and later the process of composition of the speech). My initial decision to focus on the themes of travel, landscape and the body in the Panegyric were partly inspired by the prominence of these themes in the account in the Sacred Tales; effectively I have used the latter as a guide, indeed a commentary, to illuminate the Panegyric. What clearly emerges in both texts is Aristides’ preoccupation with landscape and travel through it; his interlinking of landscape and body; and his conception of the divine as the driving force in his life. But two questions immediately arise: to what extent are these themes of landscape, travel and the body important in the rest of Aristides’ writings? And more fundamentally, how typical is this sort of interpenetration between the Sacred Tales and other orations in the corpus, and where does it lead us? Is Cyzicus a special case? The answer to the latter question, I would argue, is a resounding no. The themes of landscape, travel and the body are prominent throughout Aristides’ corpus, and I now set out the evidence for this, focusing first on the Sacred Tales and then on other orations. The Sacred Tales opens with a comparison between Aristides’ sufferings (cast as the achievements of Asklepios) and the toils of the archetypal traveller Odysseus.6 The text as a whole is teeming with references to location— where Aristides was at different points of the stories—and to his jour5 See Rutherford 1999; Elsner and Rutherford, eds. 2005; and Petsalis-Diomidis, Forthcoming. 6 Or. 47.1. On this comparison see B. Holmes’s paper in this volume.

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neys.7 Fundamental to the purpose of these stories is the presentation of Aristides’ relationship with Asklepios. The god constantly communicates with Aristides, ordering him to stay put or to travel somewhere; the usual result is the alleviation of physical suffering contrary to expectation and a sense of union with the divine. In one instance Asklepios orders Aristides to go from Pergamon to his old nurse Philoumene, and by this means the woman is saved from death.8 The account of the journey to Cyzicus is typical in its inclusion of details, such as the state of the weather, the route and stop-offs on the way. It is also representative in its interlinking of the themes of the body and oratory with the divinely inspired journey. Travel in the Sacred Tales is generally presented as being particularly difficult and dangerous for the sick Aristides, but paradoxically it is undertaken for physical healing: many stories in the Sacred Tales refer to the fact that although Aristides was unable even to get up from his bed, he went on to travel great distances with the help of the god and to experience an amazing sense of well-being.9 As far as oratory is concerned, his illness is repeatedly said to prevent him from making speeches and from travelling to cities in order to deliver them, but conversely some of the journeys inspire him to compose,10 and Asklepios’ communications more broadly are seen to benefit his oratory. In the Sacred Tales journeys are not only undertaken for the purpose of bodily healing; they are also experienced, often painfully, through the medium of the body. Simultaneously Aristides’ body is often described as a landscape, a space in which channels of breathing and eating become blocked,11 channels flow,12 and tempests occur (τρικυμ!αι).13 In the story of the tumour (Or. 47.61–68), the lanJourneys in the Sacred Tales include: Or. 47.65 (sailing across the harbour at Smyrna), 78 (journey from Pergamon to see his old nurse Philoumene); Or. 48.7 (journey from Smyrna to Pergamon), 11–18 (abortive journey to Chios), 60–70 (journey to Rome and back); Or. 49.1–6 (journey to Aliani), 7–14 (journey from the temple of Zeus Asklepios to Lebedos), 20 (ordered to go and worship the statue of Zeus at the hearth of his foster fathers); Or. 50.1–12 (journey to the Aesepus), 31–37 (journey to Rome and return via Delos and Miletos), 42–55 (second journey to Cyzicus), 83 and 103 (summoned to Pergamon); Or. 51.1–10 (journey ‘to the land of Zeus’), 11–18 (first journey to Cyzicus), 18–37 (journeys to Pergamon, Smyrna and Ephesos); Or. 52.1 (journey to Epidauros). 8 Or. 47.78. 9 E.g. Or. 48.19–23; Or. 51.1–3, 49. 10 E.g. Or. 50.3–4. 11 E.g. Or. 47.69; Or. 48.6, 56–57, 62, 64; Or. 49.1–6, 11, 16–19, 21; Or. 50.17, 22, 38. 12 E.g. Or. 48.56. 13 E.g. Or. 47.3. Cf. Or. 42.7. 7

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guage of gardening and irrigation is used: Asklepios orders Aristides to foster the growth, and says that ‘the source of this discharge was located above, and these gardeners did not know where they ought to turn the channels’ (εBναι γ ρ το <εματος τοτου τ ς πηγ ς νω, το?ς δ4 κηπουρο?ς τοτους ο%κ εOδ ναι το?ς Pχετο?ς Mr χρ" τρ πειν, Or. 47.63). The body is also frequently imagined as fragmenting, both in Aristides’ ‘real’ and oneiric life, for example in the feeling that his teeth were falling out of his mouth and his intestines were hanging out of his body, and in his dreams of being ordered to cut out pieces of his body.14 There is a profound sense in the Sacred Tales that Aristides’ relationship with the divine unfolds within the landscape of the Roman Empire, as there are references not just to journeys in Asia Minor, but also beyond to Italy and then back via Delos.15 The Pergamene Asklepieion where Aristides spent two years at the command of the god also features prominently. Some commentators have been disappointed by his apparent lack of interest in the sanctuary and the major building projects that were taking place at about this time.16 It is true that Aristides does not offer a systematic description of the sanctuary, and he refers only in passing to the magnificent new temple of Zeus Asklepios in the context of a dream about the man who financed it, L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus.17 However, stories that occur in the sanctuary are full of references to specific buildings and areas, suggesting that the miniature landscape of the Asklepieion also played an important part in the unfolding of Aristides’ relationship with Asklepios.18 This relationship is presented as the lynchpin of Aristides’ life; his therapeutic and oratorical experiences, ‘real’ and oneiric, driven by this relationE.g. Or. 47.27, 62, 63; Or. 49.15. Or. 48.60–70; Or. 50.31–37. 16 See Hoffmann 1998a and 1998b. 17 Or. 50.28. 18 E.g. Or. 47.32 (the lamps in the temple); Or. 48.30 (the temple warden Philadelphus in a dream sees Aristides in the sacred theatre), 31 (he dreams that he is in the propylaia of the temple, divine epiphany), 71 (he sleeps between the doors and gates of the temple, anointing himself in the open air, bathing in the sacred well), 74–76 (he smears mud on himself by the sacred well and bathes there; the next night runs three times around the temple and then bathes in the well), 77 (smears himself with mud and sits in the courtyard of the sacred gymnasium); Or. 49.7 (he was undergoing incubation in the temple of Zeus Asklepios), 21–23 (story of the ointment of Tyche, including oneiric and ‘real’ events at specific locations in the sanctuary e.g. Telesphoros’ temple), 28 (consumption of a drug ‘at the sacred tripod’); Or. 50.15 (ordered to resume oratory in the stoa near the theatre), 66 (dream in which companions go towards the temple, and he takes his leave). 14 15

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ship with Asklepios, also occur not just in but through the medium of the landscape. Aristides does not offer us a comprehensive picture, but a specific, close-up, fragmented vision of the sanctuary, his body and the world. I turn now to consider the themes of travel and landscape in orations other than the Sacred Tales. First, the theme of travel: there are numerous references to Aristides either travelling or refraining from travel, often at Asklepios’ command, and several of the speeches are said to be fulfilling vows to gods in thanks for saving Aristides during a journey.19 In Oration 36, The Egyptian Discourse, there are extended descriptions of Aristides’ journey up the Nile, undertaken in 142 A.D.20 The theme of safe travel as one of the blessings of Roman rule recurs numerous times.21 Travel is associated with religion both in the image of festivals continuously moving around the Empire and in the statement that despite their fear of travelling, men cross the Aegean in order to see ‘contests and mysteries’.22 Aristides uses the idea of territory being measured according to the time it would take to travel there, for example, in the case of the city of Ephesos and of the Roman Empire as a whole.23 The image of the helmsman occurs frequently, and is associated with Rome, the emperor and Asklepios.24 Aristides himself is often paralleled with the traveller (and wise speaker!) Odysseus.25 His speeches or arguments are imagined as choosing paths (literally roads), and are described as rivers and ships travelling through the landscape.26 Aristides’ treatment of the theme of travel is intimately combined with the idea of viewing the landscape. He adopts a traveller’s changing perspective in his description of landscape. I traced this in the case of Cyzicus, and there are even more compelling examples, such as Oration 17, The Smyrnaean Oration I, a speech written to celebrate the arrival 19 E.g. Or. 19.6 (he escaped the earthquake because the god ordered him to go to his estate); Or. 20.2 (the Saviour restrains him from addressing the assembly in person; he is in Laneion); Or. 21.2 (he is absent as usual because the god guides him); Or. 24.1 (again he is not able to deliver the speech in person to the Rhodians—on account of his health). Speeches made in thanks for a safe journey: Or. 26; Or. 43; Or. 44. 20 Or. 36, especially 48–56, his journey to see the cataracts of the Nile. 21 Or. 26.100; Or. 35.37; Or. 36.91. 22 Or. 26.99; Or. 44.18. 23 Or. 23.24; Or. 26.79–84, 92–95. 24 E.g. Or. 26.68 (Rome); Or. 30.28 (Asklepios); Or. 33.18 (Asklepios); Or. 35.14–15 (the emperor); Or. 42.4 (Asklepios). 25 E.g. Or. 33.18; Or. 42.14. 26 Or. 1.31 (road), and 35 (river); Or. 28.111 (the river Nile), 115 (ship); Or. 46.4 (ship).

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of the new governor of Asia, where the description of Smyrna follows the course of a walk. In this speech there is a specific emphasis on the changing views of the landscape, following the movement of the traveller. κα0 προελ&ντι μικρ8ν T πλις α`&ις Sσπερ παραπ μπουσα ναφα!νεται, κα0 γ!γνεται δι’ λKττονος ντα&α Zδη ρι&μητ κα0 μετρητ τ κKλλη α%τ7ς. κα0 ο%δε0ς ο[τως πε!γεται @στις -ρ>A τ8 πρσω τ7ς -δο κα0 ο% μεταβKλλει τ8 σχ7μα, τ μ4ν κατ’ Pφ&αλμο?ς δεξι ποιομενος, τ δ4 ριστερ πρ8 τ7ς 'ψεως (Or. 17.17).

And when you have proceeded a little ways, the city again is visible as if it were escorting you, and here its beauty can more closely be counted and measured. And no one is in such a hurry that he stares straight ahead at the road and does not change his view, shifting that before his eyes to his right, and what was to his left before his gaze.

In this case the changing views are directly related to the premise of the walk through Smyrna, but the theme occurs in more abstract ways, for example in the comparison of different views of a landscape and the rhetorical discussion of which is best.27 The idea of moving through the physical, indeed man-made, landscape and reading it is beautifully expressed in Oration 46, The Isthmian Oration: Regarding Poseidon: σοφ8ν δ4 δ" κα0 κα&’ -δ8ν λ&cν #ν ε[ροις κα0 παρ τ.ν ψχων μK&οις #ν κα0 κοσειας· τοσοτοι &ησαυρο0 γραμμKτων περ0 πAσαν α%τν, @ποι κα0 μνον ποβλ ψει τις, κα0 κατ τ ς -δο?ς α%τ ς κα0 τ ς στοKς, *τι τε τ γυμνKσια κα0 διδασκαλεα [κα0] μα&ματK τε κα0 Jστορματα (Or.

46.28).

While traveling about the city you would find wisdom and you would learn and hear it from its inanimate objects. So numerous are the treasures of paintings all about it, wherever one would simply look, throughout the streets themselves and porticoes. And further the gymnasiums and schools are instruction and stories.

But far more frequent are expressions of Aristides’ unsatisfied desire when viewing a landscape, his inability to see it from all angles and truly possess it, and this theme I would connect to his ever repeated desire for union with the divine, which is occasionally but never fundamentally satisfied.28 Moving on to the theme of landscape proper in orations other than the Sacred Tales, there are quite simply many examples of geographical 27 28

Or. 19.2; Or. 23.20. E.g. Or. 17.17; Or. 18.4–5; Or. 22.7; Or. 26.6; Or. 46.25.

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ekphrasis. These include cityscapes, landscapes, seascapes and descriptions of individual buildings.29 The frequent occurrence of this theme suggests that to some extent ekphrastic tropes construct Aristides’ thematics. One of the ways in which he repeatedly describes the landscape is in terms of the human body. Cities can be sick, such as Rhodes on account of internecine strife and the world before the era of Roman rule.30 There are analogies of the land, landmark or city to a whole person (as in the example of cities as sisters in the Panegyric in Cyzicus),31 but more frequently to a part of the human body, as in the example of the σκ λη of Cyzicus. Examples include the harbour of Smyrna as the navel and bosom of the city, the feet of Smyrna set firmly on the beaches, harbours, and glades, the sea as the eye of Smyrna, Smyrna as the eye of Asia, the Koinon of Asia set in the navel of the whole empire, the sea (of Poseidon) as a mother’s lap, the Aegean sea beginning at the islands in the south and ending in the Hellespont, its beauty extending ‘from head to foot’.32 The use of the image of a fragmented body for the landscape has particular resonance in the case of the descriptions of Smyrna and Rhodes shattered by earthquakes and political instability in Rhodes.33 The landscape is envisaged not only as parts of the human body but also as specific adornments of the body. For example, the city of Smyrna is likened to a variety of pieces of clothing, including an embroidered shirt, a robe of the Nymphs and Graces, a veil of empresses and crown of emperors, and to the crown of Ionia; the river Meles is compared to a necklace; the sea to the belt of the Roman empire; Alexandria to the necklace or bracelet of a rich woman; and Corinth to Aphrodite’s girdle, and to the pendant and necklace of all Greece.34 The likening of cities and other landscape features to adornments of the human body implicitly creates the image of the underlying geographical landscape as a vast human body. From the plethora of images of the landscape as the human body in Aristides’ corpus I have chosen two more elaborate examples to 29 Or. 17, passim (Smyrna); Or. 23.13–25 (Pergamon, Smyrna and Ephesos); Or. 26.6– 13 (Rome); Or. 27.6–17 (Cyzicus); Or. 36, passim (the Nile); Or. 46.21–26 (the Isthmus); Or. 44, passim (the Aegean); Or. 39, passim (the well at the Pergamene Asklepieion); Or. 22.9–10 (the Eleusinian sanctuary). 30 Or. 19.10; Or. 23.31; Or. 24.16; Or. 26.97. 31 Or. 17.9; Or. 20.21; Or. 21.5; Or. 23.79; Or. 24.9–12,45; Or. 26.4, 83–84; Or. 31.13; Or. 32.10, 21. 32 Or. 17.19, 22; Or. 18.3; Or. 21.7; Or. 23.9; Or. 44.17; Or. 46.24. 33 Or. 18.8, 9; Or. 19.3; Or. 21.10; Or. 24.38, 39. 34 Or. 17.10, 14; Or. 18.8; Or. 19.4; Or. 20.19, 21; Or. 21.13; Or. 26.10, 92–95; Or. 46.25.

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quote here. In Oration 26 Regarding Rome imperial conquest is expressed in terms of grasping the body or parts of the body: in the case of the Athenians and Lacedaimonians ‘their experience was the same as if someone, in his desire to obtain mastery over a body, should get hold of some nails and hair instead of the whole body, and having these should think that he has what he wished’ (κα0 *πα&ον δ" παραπλσιον Sσπερ #ν ε$ τις σ,ματος πι&υμ.ν γεν σ&αι κριος 'νυχKς τινας κα0 κρα λKβοι ντ0 @λου το σ,ματος κα0 τατα *χων *χειν ο$οιτο :περ βολετο, Or. 26.43). It is implied that the Romans grasp and enjoy the

whole body. But the landscape / body analogy is interestingly inverted later in the speech where ‘all former men, even those who ruled the largest portion of the earth, ruled over, as it were, only the naked bodies of their people’ (οJ μ4ν νω πKντες κα0 οJ π0 πλεστον γ7ς ρξαντες Sσπερ σωμKτων γυμν.ν α%τ.ν τ.ν &ν.ν _ρξαν, Or. 26.92); there is a lacuna at this point of the text, but the sense is clearly that in contrast the Romans rule over cities. To counterbalance this image of imperial conquest Aristides also gives us one of lovemaking in The Smyrnaean Oration (II): κα0 μ"ν ο%δε πλKνης γε - Μ λης ο%δ’ οLος ποφοιτAν, λλ’ *οικεν ραστM7 τινι τ7ς πλεως ο% τολμ.ντι μακροτ ραν πογ!γνεσ&αι, :τε, οBμαι, σβεστον μ4ν α%τ7ς τ8ν *ρωτα, σβεστον δ4 τ"ν φυλακ"ν *χων. Sστε α%τ&εν -ρμη&ε0ς α%το κα0 παεται, παρατε!νας κ,λFω τιν0 τ7ς πλεως \αυτν. (Or.

21.15).

Indeed, the Meles is not erratic, nor such as to wander off its course, but it is like a sort of lover of the city, who does not dare to be farther apart from it; for it has, I think, a ceaseless love for it and guards it ceaselessly, so that it begins and ends here, stretching itself, as it were, beside the city’s leg.

Through his descriptions Aristides imposes his own geographical hierarchy on the landscape. The use of images of parts of the body is one way in which this is achieved, for example in the ideas of the centrality of the navel or the preciousness of the eye. In addition, Aristides’ shifting perspective on geography results in the literal relocation of the centre of the earth in a number of speeches: Rome, Cyzicus, Corinth and the Aegean sea are at different times envisaged as the centre of the world; and at a microcosmic level, every location in Rome can be experienced as its centre.35 The idea of the citizens of Cyzicus mould-

35

Or. 26.7, 10, 13, 61; Or. 27.6–8; Or. 36.87–93; Or. 44.2–3; Or. 46.21–23, 26.

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ing their landscape through quarrying at Prokonnesos and building the temple of Hadrian is also present in passages of the ordering and rearranging of the landscape by the Romans, for example in the fording of rivers and the establishment of post stations in deserts, and on the cosmic level, in passages that describe the creation of the universe by Herakles and Zeus.36 Both in descriptions of landscape and in references to travel, especially sailing, Aristides emphasises the interconnectedness of the landscape.37 Images that convey the impression of a landscape not through detailed description but through transformational images (such as the temple of Hadrian at Cyzicus as a three-storied house or three-decked ship) occur in many orations. For example, the Aegean is envisaged as containing cities and countryside in its midst, while the islands themselves are likened to ships of rescue and ships for Leto on her way to Delos; the city of Smyrna is imagined translated into heaven; the Pergamene Asklepieion is described as the hearth of Asklepios in Asia and as the harbour of Pergamon.38 A more extended example of such transformational viewing can be found in the case of Rome. Aristides first presents the city of Rome as snow poured over the landscape, using the Homeric image, and then considers the parts of the city rising high in the hills: Sστ’ ε$ τις α%τ"ν &ελσειε κα&αρ.ς ναπτξαι κα0 τ ς νν μετε,ρους πλεις π0 γ7ς ρε!σας &εναι λλην παρ’ λλην, @σον νν Ιταλ!ας διαλεπν στιν, ναπληρω&7ναι τοτο πAν ν μοι δοκε κα0 γεν σ&αι πλις συνεχ"ς μ!α π0 τ8ν Ινιον τε!νουσα (Or. 26.8).

Therefore if someone should wish to unfold all of it and to plant and set the cities, which are now aloft in the air, upon the earth, one beside another, I think that all the now intervening space in Italy would have been filled up and that one continuous city, extending to the Ionian Sea, would have been formed.

This wonderfully vivid sifting and re-configuring of the landscape finds echoes not only in Pliny the Elder’s image of all the buildings of Rome gathered together ‘in one great heap’,39 but also within Aristides’ 36 Or. 23.43 (Persians); Or. 26.101, 102 (Romans); Or. 40.4–6, 9, 12–13 (Herakles); Or. 43.11–15, 19 (Zeus). 37 E.g. Or. 36.91. 38 Or. 1.13 and Or. 44.8–9, 14 (the Aegean); Or. 17.8 (Smyrna); Or. 23.15, 17 (the Pergamene Asklepieion). 39 Pliny Natural History 36.101 ‘For if you were to gather together all the buildings of Rome and place them in one great heap, the grandeur which towered above would be no less than if another world were described in the one place.’ (Loeb translation).

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corpus, in a number of oneiric evocations of specific landscapes and cosmic geography in the Sacred Tales.40 For example, Aristides writes: Π μπτMη φα!νετο μ4ν τ8 Jερ8ν το Απλλωνος τ8 ν τF. 'ρει τF. Μιλ>α· δκει δ4 οOκματα ττα προσγεγεν7σ&αι, κα0 'νομα εBναι τF. χωρ!Fω Ελεφαντ!νη π8 Ελεφαντ!νης τ7ς ν ΑOγπτFω. *χαιρον δ" κα0 κατ’ α%τ τ οOκματα κα0 κατ τ"ν οOκειτητα το τπου τF. τπFω (Or. 47.24).41

On the twenty-sixth, there appeared the Temple of Apollo, which is on Mount Milyas. Certain buildings seemed to have been added and the name of the place to be Elephantine from Elephantine in Egypt. I was pleased, both because of the buildings themselves and because of the similarity of the one place to the other.

In such passages the landscape is reconfigured through divine charis, and the dream reveals the divine either directly in an epiphany of the god or in the form of a prescription for Aristides’ body. But the sense of the divine within the landscape again is not limited to the Sacred Tales, but is fundamental to Aristides’ writings. It was traced in the case of Cyzicus, and further examples include Oration 39, Regarding the well in the temple of Asklepios, where divine charis is located in a specific feature of the landscape, but also in the idea of the divine sons of Asklepios travelling throughout the earth and offering their divine aid universally, unlike the heroes Amphiaraos and Trophonios who are limited to the vicinity of their oracles.42 Such place-related religion and immanent revelation of deities can be found in other second-century texts such as Pausanias’ Description of Greece and Philostratos’ Heroikos. More broadly Aristides’ interest in the themes of travel and landscape was by no means unusual in the literature of the Second Sophistic. Examples include the ancient novels, Pausanias’ Description of Greece and Menander Rhetor’s On Epideictic Speeches, which includes a substantial section on how to praise a country and city. A brief comparE.g. Or. 49.48; Or. 50.55–56 (cosmic visions); Or. 51.56–67 (topography of Athens). Compare Or. 36.50–54, a detailed discussion of the location of Elephantine and a refutation of Herodotos’ writings about the springs there. 42 Or. 20.21 (Nymphs and Muses in and around Smyrna); Or. 23.22 (Muses and Graces inhabit Smyrna); Or. 27.14 (land of Cyzicus parcelled out amongst the gods); Or. 38.20–21 (sons of Asklepios travel throughout the earth); Or. 39 passim, especially 4–6, 11, 14–15 (the sacred well in the Pergamene Asklepieion; its precise location in the landscape; described as the god’s co-worker); Or. 44.11 (the Aegean is full of sweet music, as Apollo and Artemis inhabit it); 16 (the Aegean is full of temples and paeans); Or. 46.17–19 (description of Black Sea down into the Aegean, with Poseidon riding on his chariot; mention of various temples to him dotted around), 20 (everywhere is his temple; the Isthmus is the headquarters of his kingdom). 40 41

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ison between Aristides’ approach to travel and landscape and those of Pausanias and Menander Rhetor is instructive. Despite the importance of the idea of the landscape of Greece in Pausanias’ work, there are remarkably few landscape descriptions, and instead the text follows the bare linear structure of a periplous narrative. Pausanias does not refer to the practical details of his journey and rarely alludes to his feelings or thoughts. In contrast Aristides inserts himself into the landscape by imitating the process of travel in geographical ekphrasis and by describing his experiences of travel ranging from the details of his lodgings to intense moments of divine epiphany. By contrast, Menander Rhetor’s Epideictic Treatise I Book II has much in common with Aristides’ geographical ekphrasis. In particular Menander Rhetor advises orators to locate the country or city in relation to the surrounding territory and geographical features, and includes statements in which a territory, city or harbour is compared to the human body or parts of it.43 The latter theme, however, acquires an unparalleled prominence in the corpus of Aristides’ orations, while transformational descriptions of the landscape and personal journeys are wholly absent from the advice of Menander Rhetor. Aristides’ approach to travel and landscape can thus be situated within a broader cultural sensitisation to the subject and even within similar literary tropes; but his linking of travel and landscape to the human body, personal experience and divine revelation is original. I turn now to consider very briefly the second question of how representative the example of Cyzicus is as far as interpenetration between the Sacred Tales and other orations is concerned. This is a question with far-reaching implications for the interpretation of Aristides’ corpus, but I will here limit myself to a suggestion of direction. Again, I would argue that Cyzicus is not a special case, although it is a wonderfully neat example of the dovetailing of the Sacred Tales with another of Aristides’ speeches. There are various degrees of interpenetration to identify. Fundamentally all the speeches are connected to events in Aristides’ life, such as the state of his health and his travels in order to deliver orations, and to external contemporary events, such as political events, earthquakes, deaths of friends. These same events may be referred to in the Sacred Tales and equally in other speeches. While the Sacred Tales focuses on

43

Menander Rhetor, On Epideictic Speeches, 346.1–7, 351.4–6, 22–25, 30–32.

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Aristides’ interior both in subject matter and approach, it also intersects with public events such as earthquakes and the plague, for example in the stories of Aristides stopping the spate of earthquakes and of Athena saving him from the plague.44 The earthquake that destroyed Smyrna also features prominently in other orations, in particular Orations 17–21, and the plague is also referred to.45 Similarly, in the Sacred Tales public figures such as the emperors appear frequently, and Aristides’ teacher, the grammarian Alexander of Cotyaeum, is mentioned;46 these figures also appear in other orations, the emperors frequently (e.g. Or. 23.78– 79) and Alexander of Cotyaeum in Oration 32, Funeral Address in Honour of Alexander. Fellow pilgrims at the Pergamene sanctuary appear not only in the Sacred Tales but also in a number of orations.47 There are also numerous cases of specific cross-referencing between the Sacred Tales and other orations. In the Sacred Tales there are references to the composition of orations, some of which survive, such as Oration 27, Panegyric in Cyzicus, Oration 34, Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries and Oration 41, Dionysus;48 and there are references to the Sacred Tales in Oration 42, An Address Regarding Asklepios and Oration 28, Concerning a Remark in Passing.49 Most fundamentally the Sacred Tales as a whole is an apologetic text, partly aiming to silence those who criticised Aristides for not declaiming often enough.50 To this end it reveals the extent of Aristides’ constant bodily sufferings and the god’s constant commands, both of which prevented him from writing and delivering speeches on many occasions. The relevance of this theme to the other orations is evident not only in Oration 33, To Those Who Criticise Him Because He 44 Or. 48.41; 49.38–43 (earthquakes); and Or. 51.25 (Athena saving him from the plague). 45 Or. 33.6. 46 E.g. Or. 47.23 (Alexander of Cotyaeum and the emperor); 36–38 (dream of Marcus Aurelius); 46–49 (dream of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus); Or. 50.75 (he receives letters from Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius, confirming his immunity from public office). 47 References to pilgrimage to Asklepios at Pergamon and to pilgrims known in the Sacred Tales: Or. 23.16; Or. 28.88, 133; Or. 36.10. 48 Or. 50.25 (composition of Oration 41, In Defence of Running, Athena and Dionysus); Or. 51.16 (composition of Oration 27, Panegyric in Cyzicus). See also Or. 50.42 (reference to the Macedonian man’s dream of singing a paean to ‘Herakles Asklepios’, also referred to in Or. 40.21); Or. 51.39 (reference to delivering Oration 34, Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries, and amazing feeling of ease during delivery); Or. 52.3 (possible allusions to Oration 1, Panathenaikos, and Oration 26, On Rome, in a dream). 49 Or. 42.4; Or. 28.116–118. 50 E.g. Or. 50.23; Or. 51.56.

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Does Not Declaim, which deals directly with the issue, but also in numerous other instances where the speeches open with an apology for the fact that Aristides himself is not delivering the speech on account of ill health or at the commands of the god.51 At the same time, one of the key themes of the Sacred Tales is that of the god’s help to Aristides in improving his oratory, and this directly connects the work with the actual extant orations. The Sacred Tales, especially in Book IV, reveals the way in which a symbiotic relationship develops between Aristides’ ill-health and his oratory, as the god’s communications begin and continue with great frequency on account of the former but gradually become beneficial to the latter. Eventually this complicated relationship between ill-health and oratorical success is interpreted both by Aristides and apparently by the orator Pardalas along the lines that he became ill ‘by some divine good fortune’ (τχMη τιν0 &ε!>α) in order to improve his oratory (Or. 50.27 and 29). At various points in the Sacred Tales Aristides discusses in detail how the god effected this improvement, including exhortations not to abandon oratory (Or. 50.14), suggestions of particular topics of composition (Or. 50.39), exercises of ‘unseen preparation’ (Or. 50.26), oneiric introductions to the great authors of the past (Or. 50.59), actual prompting with specific phrases in dreams (Or. 50.25–27 and 39–41), and divine inspiration during delivery (Or. 50.22). In the orations themselves there are countless references to divine commands to take up the challenge of certain topics, pleas for divine aid, and references to direct divine inspiration on the way.52 But whereas these are brief and may appear conventional, the narrative of the Sacred Tales reveals in depth the intimate processes of composition underlying the other orations, and how these relate to Aristides’ body and the divine. Where does this discussion lead us? I suggest that it offers us the model of using the Sacred Tales as a guide to reading Aristides’ corpus not only in a specific way, as I hope to have demonstrated in relation to Oration 27, Panegyric in Cyzicus and in relation to the theme of travel and landscape, but also in a fundamental way, as a key interpretative text that reveals Aristides’ essential outlook. A reading of the Sacred Tales prompts us to take very seriously the statement in Oration 23, Concerning Concord that the area of Pergamon where the sanctuary of Asklepios was situated was ‘the most honoured of all and ever in my mind’ (τ8 δ’ 51 52

Or. 20.2; Or. 21.2; Or. 24.1; Or. 32.1; Or. 33, passim, e.g. 4; Or. 46.1. E.g. Or. 22.1; Or. 26.1; Or. 28.21 and 105; Or. 30.14; Or. 36.124.

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YπKντων τιμι,τατον κα0 δι  πKσης ε0 μνμης μο0, Or. 23.14), and the

passage in Oration 46, The Isthmian Oration: Regarding Poseidon ‘when I am mindful of the divine everywhere and when most of my lectures, more or less, are concerned with this’ (μ4 πανταχο το &ε!ου μεμνημ νον, κα0 σχεδ8ν τ7ς πλε!στης μοι διατριβ7ς τ.ν λγων περ0 τατα οNσης, Or. 46.3). Aristides’ deeply religious outlook can then be recognised throughout his corpus as the prism through which everything is viewed and indeed transformed, most importantly the landscape, his own body and his oratory.

chapter eight ARISTIDES AND PLUTARCH ON SELF-PRAISE

Dana Fields This paper concerns the two longest and most elaborate discussions of self-praise that survive from Greco-Roman antiquity, Plutarch’s On Inoffensive Self-Praise and Aristides’ On an Incidental Remark.1 I propose to read these texts in a way that sets each author’s treatment of the topic against the social and political contexts that these same texts depict, while taking into account their differences in aim and genre. The focus of each work is on the arguments for or against self-praise (and in Plutarch’s case helpful how-to tips). At the same time, it is crucial not to overlook the fact that all of the advice, the complaints, and the selfjustifications expressed by these texts take shape against the political and cultural background of the high Roman Empire. By comparing two figures who position themselves in such strikingly different ways in relation to the agonistic elite display culture of this period, we can tease out elements of the complex relationship between epideictic rhetoric, self-promotion, and political involvement.2 1 Περ0 το \αυτ8ν παινεν νεπιφ&νως and Or. 28, Περ0 το παραφ& γματος. See Rutherford 1995, 199–201 for other sources on periautologia and self-praise more broadly, plus Dio Chrysostom Or. 57 (a defense of Nestor’s boasting, which serves as a preemptive deflection in case the same charge might be brought against Dio himself, and in the course of which Dio manages to assimilate himself to Nestor—a strategy that rivals Aristides’ for self-aggrandizement), and Alexander of Cotiaeum’s ‘On the Difference between Praise and Encomium’ found at Rhetores Graeci 3.2–4 (ed. Spengel). The texts that discuss this issue are predominantly Greek, with the exceptions of Tacitus Agricola 1 and Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 11.1.16, where brief mentions appear. See also Gibson 2003, esp. 245–248, for discussion of Pliny’s use of mitigating strategies in self-praise and the place of self-praise in Roman culture more generally. 2 I use the terms ‘political’ and ‘politics’ (as they apply to the actions of an individual) in the narrow sense, here and throughout this essay, to refer to direct involvement in civic or provincial institutions and the fulfillment of civic or provincial responsibilities. This includes holding office, performing public benefaction (voluntary or otherwise), and serving as an ambassador to other cities, the emperor, or one of the emperor’s representatives. More generally, it also means taking an active part in ensuring the well-being (however tendentiously defined) of the city in its internal affairs and in its relations with other cities and the imperial authorities.

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Plutarch’s On Inoffensive Self-Praise is an instructional treatise probably written during the first decades of the second century CE.3 Plutarch sets out reasons why self-praise is off-putting to others, situations where it is acceptable, and ways to use it without offending (or avoid using it altogether). Aristides’ On an Incidental Remark is by contrast defensive and polemical rather than didactic. The situation that prompted the work can be gleaned from the text as follows: during his period of ‘incubation’ at the temple of Asclepius in the mid 140’s CE, Aristides apparently committed a faux pas while presenting a speech in honor of Athena. He inserted into his written remarks some extemporaneous praise of the speech he was currently giving, allegedly provoking the censure of an unnamed critic, who in turn convinced a friend of the rhetor to criticize him privately. On an Incidental Remark represents Aristides’ public response to this criticism, in which he defends his comment by giving reasons for and examples of justified self-praise.

Self-Praise in the High Empire It has been commonly observed that self-praise, or periautologia (literally: talking about oneself), is a concern that appears frequently in texts of the Roman imperial period, though, as has also been demonstrated, interest in this topic originates earlier.4 My primary question in this paper is what use Plutarch and Aristides in particular make of this theme and what this tells us about how each author envisioned the role of the prominent man in relation to his society, but I would also like

3

If the addressee Herculanus is in fact C. Julius Eurycles Herculanus L. Vibullius Pius, descendant of Spartan dynasts who received their local rule and their citizenship from Octavian, friend to Hadrian, and first senator from Sparta (under Trajan). Herculanus was known also for his patronage locally in Sparta and to various other Greek cities on a scale comparable to the benefactions of Herodes Atticus. See Halfmann 1979, no. 29; Cartledge and Spawforth 2002, 110–111. On the dating of Plutarch’s works, see Jones 1966. 4 See Pernot 1998, though it does not necessarily follow that self-praise is not an especial concern in the Roman period. See also Most 1989, arguing that throughout Greek literature talking about oneself to strangers must take the form of a ‘tale of woe’, which he regards as the least problematic mode of self-disclosure in such a situation. As one might expect, self-aggrandizement and other issues related to aristocratic competition are also prominent in honorific inscriptions; see e.g. from third century Oenoanda SEG XLIV 1182 (B), LIII 1689 (on which see Dickey 2003).

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to raise the question of what this preoccupation with praising oneself means more broadly during this era. Diverse interpretations have appeared over the course of the last century regarding the amount of attention that the problem of self-praise receives during the high Roman Empire. These range from Mikhail Bakhtin’s perception of a widespread alienation of the individual from his society, which leaves the individual unsure as to how much selfassertion is allowed (1981, 132–135),5 to Ian Rutherford’s view that the issue is merely a matter of rhetorical decorum, an interpretation that cuts loose the problematics of self-praise from their historical moorings (1995, 193–204).6 In my opinion, the prevalence of the concern with selfpraise shows the individual (qua individual) making sense of his place in relation to society. After all, such a pervasive concern with how to talk about oneself suggests not individuals alienated from society, but just the opposite: an elite culture in which people are intensely engaged with others, even to the point where this engagement verges on blood sport (as we will see in the course of this paper). Rutherford is right to say that ‘most of periautologia tradition in rhetoric is the working out of a problem of decorum created by a conflict between the social pressure to assert oneself in public and the social criticism of excessive assertiveness’ (ibid., 201). However, the agonistic pressure to self-promote and the opposing forces of social unification that aim to prevent any man from becoming too conspicuous must be examined with reference to the particular historical contexts that give meaning to these forces. For Plutarch and Aristides, this fundamental tension was shaped to a large degree by the political and social environment of the imperial Greek cities.7 Epigraphic sources reveal copi-

5

It is not unreasonable to suspect that this interpretation was colored by Bakhtin’s own experiences under Stalin, including a six-year exile to Kazakhstan. Cf. his contemporary E.R. Dodds’s view of the second to third centuries as an ‘age of anxiety’ in Dodds 1965 (and Swain’s historicization of that claim: 1996, 106–108). 6 Rutherford is followed for the most part by Pernot, who locates the problem of periautologia in the tension between its usefulness and its ‘dénonciation unanime’, (1998, at 117). 7 For surveys of local politics in the Greek East, see Jones 1940, 170–191; Sartre 1991, esp. 126–133; Millar 2006 [1993]; Salmeri 2000, 69–76; Ma 2000, 117–122. For a study of the robust political culture of Asia Minor in the High Empire (from which we have the preponderance of our epigraphic material), see Mitchell 1993, 198–217; and for an examination of the role of local officials as represented in inscriptions detailing civic offices in the province of Asia, see Dmitriev 2005, esp. 140–188 (though see also the reservations of Burell 2005; Habicht 2005).

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ous internal political activity in the Greek East, but the limited autonomy of these cities reduced their scope of action in external affairs. Furthermore, there was at least some degree of direct oversight by Roman magistrates, except among the few ‘free’ cities.8 Some of the greatest threats to the stability of the Greek cities were internal rifts, caused by aristocratic infighting, class conflict, or other factionalism, as shown in the writings of Dio Chrysostom, Plutarch, and Aristides, as well as epigraphic and numismatic evidence.9 As a result, the potential for Roman intervention always loomed, which provided elite orators with a trope to use (opportunistically or not) in their attempts at controlling the urban masses. At the same time as we recognize the influence of the socio-political environment in which Plutarch and Aristides wrote, we should also acknowledge that the contrasts between their texts arise in part from the cultural role in which each of the authors generally chose to present himself—Plutarch as instructive philosopher and Aristides as rhetor (or ‘sophist’, much as Aristides might dispute that label).10 The role to which each author lays claim plays a large part in determining his approach to the long-standing problem of negotiation between the extremes of self-glorification and restraint in a highly competitive society. Greek elite culture always had an agonistic bent, but during this period the emphasis becomes more narrowly focused on the sphere of oratorical performance as such. I argue that Plutarch’s and Aristides’ respective self-positioning in relation to this epideictic culture helps elucidate the complicated interrelation of literary and political activity in the Roman era. The political dimension of self-praise is illustrated by the way these authors’ treatments of the topic tap into a larger tension between behavior that is advantageous locally and behavior that is advantageous 8 See Millar 2004a [1988], 203; id. 2004b [1981], 328 on the elusive definition of the ‘free city’. 9 For Aristides and Plutarch, see below; for Dio, see e.g. Or. 32, 34, 39, 46. Sheppard 1984–1986, 241–248, provides an overview. 10 In framing this essay, I take Plutarch and Aristides to be representative to a significant degree of the cultural roles they adopt, but I do not mean to suggest that they are identical to their roles. There are of course limits to how typical we can take them to be, and I acknowledge that each was an idiosyncratic intellectual in his own right. Furthermore, the roles themselves are malleable (i.e. each man takes an active part in shaping the meaning of his role) and generally a matter of self-presentation: in spite of the common contraposition of rhetoric and philosophy (traceable back to Plato), Plutarch produced some sophistic works, while Aristides displays in his writings a very thorough knowledge of Plato’s arguments (rather than just his style).

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in a broader imperial context. Plutarch’s writings convey the message that within the polis the time for fierce competition and its accompanying self-promotion has passed (though self-praise always had to be handled with care, as his examples from orators of the classical period illustrate).11 By contrast, Aristides represents what later became for elite Greeks the dominant mode of public life, in which ambition aimed at the imperial center took priority over local participation and benefaction.12 In further support of this point we can note, for example, Aristides’ pride in having given speeches before emperors and his resistance to taking up local office.13 By comparing these two authors we can attain a better perspective on the tension inherent in the very issue of self-praise and on the range of approaches to it that were available to prominent Greeks of the High Empire.

Plutarch: the Value of Harmony When reading Plutarch’s On Inoffensive Self-Praise against Aristides’ work on the same theme, one aspect of Plutarch’s piece that becomes particularly striking is its orientation toward the external viewpoint. This should not be too surprising in and of itself—it is practically a cliché at this point to say that the Greeks inhabited a culture carefully attuned to judgment in the eyes of others14—but it is Aristides’ lack of interest in discussing why self-praise creates problems and what effect it has on its listeners that makes the attention to these issues so noticeable in Plutarch. For more on Plutarch’s relation to his political context, see Aalders 1982; Swain 1996, 135–186; Stadter and Van der Stockt (eds.) 2002; de Blois et al. (eds.) 2004, esp. the contributions of Stadter, de Blois, Beck, and Cook. For the philosophical background of Plutarch’s political prescriptions, see the papers of Hershbell, Secall, and Trapp (ibid.). 12 See Swain 1997, 5–9. On evasion of local offices (and their accompanying liturgies), see Jones 1940, 184–190. 13 Pride in having given speeches to emperors: Or. 42.14; in his connection with the emperors more generally: Or. 19.1. See also Philostratus, Vitae Sophistarum 582–583, and Behr 1968, 111, 142–144. Resistance to office: Or. 50.71–108; cf. Pernot, pp. 176–179 in this volume, for a reading of Aristides’ evasion of office as prioritizing Asclepius over all else, including the imperial authority. 14 Cf. Dodds’s importation of the concept ‘shame culture’ from anthropology (1951, 28–63). Note also Swain’s insistence that the interest in the ‘self ’ during the Roman Empire does not include a conception of an isolated individual, but a self that exists in relation to others and is maintained with others’ judgments in mind (1996, 128). 11

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These other-oriented strategies are apparent in the ethical terms Plutarch uses to describe self-praise: he calls it offensive (παχ& ς, 539a), unpleasant (τ"ν ηδ!αν, 539b), emphasizes its role in inciting both hatred and envy, and proclaims ‘we are appropriately disgusted at it’ (εOκτως δυσχερα!νομεν, 539c).15 He draws an even stronger connection between how one presents oneself and how others react when he scolds that ‘praise of oneself is most painful/distressing to others’ (λυπηρτατον, 539d). The man who promotes himself in this way is also taken to exhibit shamelessness and a selfish, unjust character. One reason for this judgment is the fact that the auto-encomiast forces his listener into a choice between two undesirable reactions: to stay quiet and seem envious, or to join in the praise and act as a flatterer (539d).16 It is almost as if the braggart is his own flatterer, inflating himself just as inappropriately as a flatterer does for others, and with equal shamelessness. Throughout this list of criticisms, it is precisely the selfcenteredness of the auto-encomiast, that is, his lack of attention to others’ reactions, that comes under attack. In trying to elucidate why self-praise is such a problem at the close of the work, Plutarch maintains his focus on others’ reactions. In reference to manipulative types who deliberately provoke someone into glorifying himself, Plutarch states: Εν :πασιν ο`ν τοτοις ε%λαβητ ον )ς *νι μKλιστα, μτε συνεκπ!πτοντα τος πα!νοις μτε τας ρωτσεσιν \αυτ8ν προϊ μενον. ντελεστKτη δ4 τοτων ε%λKβεια κα0 φυλακ" τ8 προσ χειν \τ ροις \αυτο?ς παινοσι κα0 μνημονεειν, )ς ηδ4ς τ8 πρAγμα κα0 λυπηρ8ν :πασι κα0 λγος λλος ο%δε0ς ο[τως παχ&"ς ο%δ4 βαρς. ο%δ4 γ ρ *χοντες εOπεν @ τι πKσχομεν λλο κακ8ν Xπ8 τ.ν αXτο?ς παινοντων Sσπερ φσει βαρυνμενοι τ8 πρAγμα κα0 φεγοντες παλλαγ7ναι κα0 ναπνεσαι σπεδομεν. (547c–d)

In all these circumstances one cannot be too cautious, neither allowing oneself to be drawn out by the compliments nor led on by the questions. The best means of caution and guarding against this is to pay attention to others praising themselves and to remember that the matter was distasteful and painful to all and that no other speech is so annoying or offensive. For though we cannot say that we have suffered any ill other than having to listen to the self-praise, it is as if by nature that we are

15 The Greek text of Plutarch’s On Inoffensive Self-Praise is Pohlenz and Sieveking 1972; the text of Political Precepts is Hubert and Pohlenz 1957. 16 The speaker demonstrates he is unworthy of praise by boasting; therefore any praise of him must be flattery.

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oppressed at the matter and try to escape it, and we are eager to be set free and to breathe again.17

As an explanation for the offensiveness of self-praise, this passage stresses the inexplicability of the irritation that the act causes. The words used to convey the offense itself emphasize its weighty quality: it is ‘heavy’ (παχ&ς), ‘burdensome’ (βαρς), and ‘oppressive’ (βαρυνμενοι), suggesting a quasi-physical dimension to the effects of self-praise. Yet Plutarch is only able to account for the unbearable heaviness of auto-encomium by attributing it to ‘human nature’ (φσις). In using images of physicality to understand the effects of self-praise, Plutarch occludes the evasiveness of his recourse to the mysterious and unquestionable ‘way things are’. However, as he continues, it becomes apparent that this so-called ‘natural’ reaction is a cover for the resentment caused by others’ flaunting of their social or material advantages, as illustrated by the example of a resentful parasite (547d). Plutarch’s avoidance of making this revelation explicit is as telling (if not more so) than if he had said it outright: if the wealthy and prominent can keep quiet about their privilege, he implies, the society as a whole will be more stable, and those advantages will not come under threat. Here, as elsewhere, Plutarch reveals that he is concerned with the reactions of less privileged ‘others’ as well as those of the reader’s aristocratic fellows.18 The preceding passage highlights not just the effects of self-praise but also the vigilance over oneself necessary for avoiding the error.19 Plutarch follows with a tip for achieving that aim:

17

All translations are my own. See below, n. 25. 19 The language used to prescribe this vigilance also appears in Plutarch’s How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend, another text highly concerned with negotiating the tensions inherent in elite (and would-be elite) interaction and with keeping watch over oneself and others (ε%λKβεια and related forms in this connection: 49a, 58a, 70e, 71b; φυλακ and related forms: 50e, 56f, 57a, 61d, 66e, 68d, 71d, 72d). See Whitmarsh 2006, passim, but esp. 102. The emphasis on both self-mastery and the monitoring of others in this period has been widely recognized. This is especially so in the wake of Foucault’s influential analysis (1986, 39–95), which takes this preoccupation as indicating the relocation of ethical self-definition among elites to a more internallyoriented plane (which he describes as an intensification and valorization of the relations ‘of oneself to oneself ’). However, Foucault’s explanation of the phenomenon in terms of the individual’s declining political efficacy has been seriously questioned in light of evidence that the political environment of the Greek cities continued to foster robust 18

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dana fields #ν μνημονεωμεν, @τι τος Oδ!οις πα!νοις λλτριος 5πεται ψγος ε0 κα0 γ!νεται τ λος δοξ!α τ7ς κενοδοξ!ας τατης… φεξμε&α το λ γειν περ0 αXτ.ν, #ν μ τι μεγKλα μ λλωμεν hφελεν \αυτο?ς D το?ς κοοντας.

(547e–f) If we remember that censure of others always follows from praise of oneself and that the end of this empty self-glorification is the opposite of glory… we will avoid speaking about ourselves unless we intend some great advantage to ourselves or our listeners.

This ambiguous expression, ‘λλτριος… ψγος’, manages to suggest both criticism from others who are annoyed at having to listen to selfpraise and the implicit criticism of others that praising oneself entails in a context where competition is perceived as zero-sum. Both readings illustrate Plutarch’s great sensitivity to the volatile nature of agonistic elite culture.20 In the course of this conclusion, Plutarch moves from discussing annoyance at others’ self-praise to strategies for avoiding the act oneself, but despite this switch he maintains the first person plural. This ‘we’, while didactic in tone, is also slippery in its identification, migrating throughout this work between the producers of self-promotion and their audience, and thus creating a double perspective.21 The implication is that one must be able to imagine one’s actions from an external point of view to determine the correct (i.e. the least offensive) behavior. It is indeed crucial to Plutarch’s aims and to the kind of advice he is giving that the desirable action is the one least annoying to others. The last sentence of the text (as quoted above) reinforces (and complicates) one more fundamental and recurrent theme: self-praise is justified if it has some end that promotes the collective good.22 But this ending also throws into question the assumptions of the entire work by raising the possibility that self-interest is also a justifiable reason—if one local involvement. See e.g. Swain 1999, 89, demonstrating that the proper regulation of the self and of private life was viewed in the high empire as a prerequisite for the management of public life. 20 See also 540a–b, 546c, 546f–547a, as well as Sympotic Questions 2.1, 630c–d on annoying self-praise. 21 Cf. Plutarch’s use of a similar tactic in How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend. The tricks of shifting focalization in both these works illustrate the importance of keeping watch over others as training for monitoring oneself. 22 See also 539e–f, 544d. Plutarch’s language here echoes that of Plato in his discussions of the exceptional ‘noble lie’ (π’ hφελ!>α τ7ς πλεως, Republic 389b; π’ hφελ!>α τ.ν ρχομ νων, 459d; see also 414b–415d). Both authors share the aim of political expediency.

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manages to self-promote without causing a negative reaction. At this point we must note that Plutarch’s suggestions in On Inoffensive Self-Praise are generally aimed at the man taking an active part in local politics. A generous reader might grant Plutarch that the true statesman’s interests are always in some sense the public interest; and, in fact, at the opening of the Political Precepts, Plutarch himself urges that a man should never go into public life to glorify himself but rather to serve his community with its best interests as his aim (798c–799a). However, this ending also points to the fact that tension still remains between the value of selfpraise to an individual and the social forces that discourage it. Plutarch’s Political Precepts can also be used to throw further light on why the issue of self-praise is so relevant to Greek politics under the Roman Empire. The advice in On Inoffensive Self-Praise is geared overall toward maintaining social harmony and diminishing envy (phthonos) at a local level.23 The title itself in Greek is Περ0 το \αυτ8ν παινεν νεπιφ&νως: On praising oneself without engendering the odium that accompanies too-eminent success.24 Terms such as μμελς (literally: harmonious in the musical sense) come up fairly frequently and are set in opposition to the unattractive quality of self-love and the undesirable envy of others (542b, 544b). Furthermore, Plutarch explicitly states that harmony should be an aim both in interaction with one’s equals and in one’s relationship with the masses (hoi polloi).25 By comparing Plutarch’s presentation of harmony in the Political Precepts to that in On Inoffensive Self-Praise, we can see that for Plutarch the value of social harmony lies in its necessity for maintaining local stability.26 He illustrates this when he cautions that ambition (φιλοτιμ!α) 23

Cf. Plutarch’s interest in harmony on an extremely local scale, i.e. among fellowdiners, in Sympotic Questions, esp. 1.2, 615c–619a; 1.4, 620a–622b; 7.6, 709d. In expressing his concern not only about aristocratic phthonos but also about mitigating strategies for dealing with that envy, Plutarch echoes Pindaric themes, illustrating a parallel between the social function of his text and that of Pindar’s apotropaic treatment of (human) phthonos; for an analysis of Pindar’s strategies for counteracting envy, see Kurke 1991, 195–218. 24 On this definition of phthonos, see Konstan 2003. 25 Envy and resentment of hoi polloi specifically: 542c, 544d; envy explicitly among elites: 540b, 546c, 546f–547a. Envy among elites is mainly discussed as the cause of self-praise, which would in turn exacerbate the problem, while the masses’ envy is prompted by the self-praise of a public speaker. 26 Expressed as homonoia: 824b–e; and in a musical metaphor: 809e. See Sheppard 1984–1986 on the importance of homonoia as an ideal in the works of Plutarch and in this period more generally, as attested by literary, epigraphic, and numismatic evidence; Swain 1999 on Plutarch’s depictions of the interrelation of domestic/interpersonal

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and contentiousness (φιλονεικ!α) destroy a state,27 and urges local leaders not to involve Rome in order to assert themselves over their rivals— this tactic results in more subjection to the Romans than is necessary and weakens the authority of local governments (814e–815a).28 As in On Inoffensive Self-Praise, Plutarch once again shows his concern over the dangers of class conflict: he warns that faction in the sense of quarrels between the elites and (as he puts it) their ‘inferiors’ can destabilize a city, and cites the current ‘weak state of Greek affairs’ as a reason to be especially careful in maintaining internal concord (homonoia).29 Seen against this background, it becomes clear that the importance of not offending with self-praise during this period is so much more than a strategic way to make friends and influence people. Exercising discretion in talking about oneself is crucial to maintaining the limited independence that Greek cities enjoyed, at the same time as it helps safeguard the advantages of the wealthy and prominent.

Aristides: Self-Promotion in the Service of Truth Moving now to Aristides’ On an Incidental Remark, we find a very different emphasis from that of Plutarch. Aristides’ work devotes far more space than Plutarch’s to providing justifications for self-praise and shows almost no interest in the reactions of the listener. This emphasis, and more specifically the kinds of justification Aristides produces, suggest a view of self-praise that focuses more on the qualities of the man speaking and less on his social context. Aristides repeatedly insists that it is his own talent as an orator, along with the inspiration and favor of the gods, that enables him to make comments in praise of himself. The idea that self-praise is justified by the nature of the man speaking is a theme that pervades the text, but Aristides sets it out most succinctly in this formulation: ‘I believe it is a homonoia and the smooth running of a city; Cook 2004 on the way Plutarch’s preferred rhetorical exempla in the Political Precepts also emphasize harmony. 27 809c, 815a–b, 819e–820a, 824f–825f. Plutarch also notes that this ambition and contentiousness are equally destructive to a statesman’s career: 811d–e, 816c–d. (N.B. that Hubert and Pohlenz prefer φιλονικ!α at 811d, 815a.) 28 This advice is supported by episodes from the history of the Roman conquest of mainland Greece as depicted in Plutarch’s Life of Flamininus 12.9–10. 29 815a–819d, 823e–824e. Cf. Aristides on ceasing from faction, rather than from aristocratic rivalry, to avoid Roman intervention (Or. 24.22).

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trait of an intelligent and moderate man to know his worth, and of the just man to pay himself and others their due, and of a brave man to speak the truth unafraid’ (φρον!μου μ4ν γ ρ, οBμαι, κα0 σ,φρονος γν.ναι τ"ν ξ!αν, δικα!ου δ4 τ πρ ποντα κα0 αXτF. κα0 \τ ροις ποδοναι, νδρε!ου δ4 μ" φοβη&7ναι τλη&4ς εOπεν, 145).30 The assumption that underlies the first part of this statement is one that recurs often in this speech: self-knowledge is reliable.31 Here we can compare the attitude of Plutarch, who warns in On Inoffensive Self-Praise and elsewhere that self-love makes self-knowledge extremely difficult to attain.32 Clearly this sense of caution is not shared by Aristides, who proclaims, ‘I understand oratory better than the critic and those like him and am more capable of judging what deserves praise than a member of the audience’ (κα! μοι παρ!ει περ0 τοτων μεινον σο κα0 τ.ν σο0 προσομο!ων π!στασ&αι, σκοτοδινι>A δ" πAς ντα&α κροατ"ς κα0 ο%κ *χει τ!ς γ νηται, 120). As this statement suggests, self-knowledge for Aristides is closely tied to an understanding of the art of oratory. Early on in the speech, he presents the matter this way: if the critic thinks Aristides is a better judge than himself of what is suitable to say in a historical declamation in the person of a famous ancient orator, how can he think that he is a better judge than Aristides when it comes to what is suitable for Aristides to say about himself ? While, as Aristides says, he has to guess at the character of figures like Demosthenes, he thinks he knows his own character clearly (6–7).33 Besides the belief that one can be clear-sighted about oneself, the statement quoted above (145) relies on two other suspicious assumptions. The clause at the center of the sentence suggests that speaking well of oneself is equivalent to speaking well of someone else, which implicitly locates the value of speech in its truth-content and thereby denies the importance of its role in social interaction.34 In connection with this, the belief underlying the final phrase is that speaking the truth is valuable in itself, no matter what effect it has.

See also 11, 150–151. See also 4–5, 14, 118. 32 On Inoffensive Self-Praise 546b; How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend 48e–49a; On Tranquility of Mind 471d–e. 33 The οBμαι in ‘τ8 δ’ μαυτο σαφ.ς, οBμαι, π!σταμαι’ is likely sarcastic. 34 Cf. Plutarch on the limited circumstances (καιρς κα0 πρKχις) that might allow this approach: On Inoffensive Self-Praise 539e. 30 31

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These assumptions are part of a tendency throughout this speech to reframe the issue of self-praise as a matter of frankness, parrhêsia.35 Aristides accuses his critic of disallowing candor entirely if he prevents Aristides from praising himself (at least without showing that the self-praise is untrue) (47). This argument, like many of those that Aristides makes about himself in this speech, is based on the fundamental premise that assertions should fit what they refer to (in this case, the quality of Aristides’ oratory) rather than the social context in which they take place. As Aristides says: ο[τω το!νυν κα0 τ.ν ν&ρ,πων @σοι &εοφιλες κα0 τ.ν -μοφλων προ χουσιν, ο%κ αOσχνονται τλη&7 λ γοντες, λλ’ Tγονται το?ς λτας Xπ8 πορ!ας πολλ ψευδομ νους κα0 κατ τ"ν τ7ς χρε!ας αOτ!αν ποι7σαι τοNνομα τοτο ] σ? φεγεις, τ8ν λαζνα, Fp πAσαν τ"ν ναντ!αν *ρχεται δπου&εν - τλη&7 λ γων. (49)36

All men dear to the gods and excelling their fellows are not ashamed to speak the truth, but they believe that beggars tell many lies out of poverty and because of their need have made up this name which you shun, ‘braggart’. This ‘braggart’ is entirely opposite to the direction the truth-speaker proceeds.

With this ‘fanciful etymology’,37 the ‘god-cherished’ truth-speaker is set up as the opposite of the λαζ,ν, the braggart, who is implicitly an impostor because he praises himself dishonestly.38 Aristides even goes so far as to claim that his speech (or any true statement) cannot be blameworthy on the very basis that it is true when he reminds his audience that insult is not illegal, only slander. By the same logic, he continues, ‘if someone praises himself, he would not justly be blamed, so long as he does not tell lies’ (ο[τως ο%δ’ #ν περ0 \αυτο τις ε%φημM7, δικα!ως #ν *χοι μ μψιν, 5ως πεστιν τ8 τ ψευδ7 λ γειν, 50). Another ploy Aristides uses to shed a more positive light on his behavior is the depiction of his self-praise as having philanthropic motives (a tactic which is in line with Plutarch’s advice). In one instance For more references to parrhêsia, see 53, 85, 88. Cf. 11. 37 Behr 1981, 384 n. 72. The pun relies on similarities between λτης (beggar/wanderer) and λαζ,ν (braggart) and builds off a much older pun on λη&ς (truth) and λτης, which is first attested at Od. 14.118–127. Cf. Plutarch On Exile 607c–d; Dio Chrysostom 1.9, 7.1, 13.9–11. Cf. also Strabo 1.2.23, which connects the λαζ,ν with πλKνη (wandering)! On Homer, see Goldhill 1991, 38; Segal 1994, 179–183. On Dio, see Whitmarsh 2001, 162. 38 On the history of the term λαζ,ν, see MacDowell 1990. 35 36

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he even proposes that he is duty-bound to point out what is good about his speech since otherwise the crowd simply would not be capable of noticing all of its fine elements, much less judging which of its qualities are most deserving of praise. Therefore the act of self-praise is characteristic of a man who is ‘completely forthright and generous’ (κα&αρ.ς Yπλον κα0 φιλKν&ρωπον, 119).39 This formulation once again depends on Aristides’ superior understanding of the oratorical art. In a metaphor that oozes condescension, he compares his naïve audience, in their ignorance at how to judge his speeches, to soldiers in a battle line who have been surrounded and are thrown into confusion (120). In other words, his speeches are so good that they practically attack the listener with a barrage of excellent techniques! Only with Aristides’ help can the audience survive this onslaught by learning the true value of his oratorical skill.

Aristides: Divine Sanction In addition to the admirable qualities of frankness and benevolence that Aristides claims for himself, another factor that is crucial to justifying his self-praise is his self-presentation (in this speech and elsewhere) as both a favorite of particular gods and the recipient of divine help. According to Aristides, help from the gods is part of what makes a man great,40 and (as we have seen) a great man must be honest and open about his greatness. Honesty therefore includes attributing this excellence to the gods that made it possible; in Aristides’ case these are Asclepius, Athena, and even the Muses. Aristides’ argument rests in part on the notion that his self-praise is indirectly praise of these divinities and that barring him from remarking on the greatness they have allowed him to attain is in some sense to disallow praise of the gods themselves. Aristides’ comments about his connection to the gods range from the general, as when, for example, he groups himself among those dear to

See also 103, 105, 147. Precedents for divine inspiration of oratory include: Plato as skeptical of oratorical inspiration, Phaedrus 234d–e, 245a; Ion 534c; Aristotle on the ‘enthusiastic’ style, in connection with ‘what is fitting’ (τ8 πρ πον), Rhetoric 1408a36–b20. See also Cicero De Oratore 2.193–194; Seneca Major Suasoriae 3.6; Quintilian on Plato as divinely inspired, Institutio Oratoria 12.10.24. 39 40

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the gods,41 to the very personal, as at the end of the speech when he refers to Asclepius as his patron or protector (προστKτης) and his only guide (παιδαγωγς, 156).42 This image of Asclepius as a teacher and patron is one that appears frequently in the Hieroi Logoi. Aristides relates how, through the medium of a dream, the god encouraged and even commanded him not to give up his oratorical training while he was convalescing in the temple at Pergamum (Or. 50.14–15). He also tells of how his oratorical powers increased, not only because of the god’s encouragement of his practice, but also due to the god’s more specific instruction in that training: for example, Asclepius tells Aristides which ancient authors he should study, and Aristides says that from then on those authors were like comrades to him, with Asclepius as their common patron (κα! μοι πKντες οiτοι μετ’ κε!νην τ"ν Tμ ραν \ταροι σχεδ8ν φKνησαν, το &εο προξενσαντος, Or. 50.24).43 Oratorical assistance from the gods often takes the form of a dream in Aristides’ writings. Early on in his speech on the ‘incidental remark’, Aristides explicitly compares his oratorical inspiration to the poets’ relationship to the Muses. Like Hesiod, Aristides presents himself as visited by the goddess in a dream—Athena herself in this case, to aid him in composing the speech in her honor—and he insists that in praising himself he acknowledged the goddess’ inspiration (20–21).44 Likewise, Aristides attributes his own speeches to Asclepius in the Hieroi Logoi (Or. 48.82),45 and refers in that work to dreams in which he found himself speaking ‘better than I was accustomed to and saying things I had never thought’ (πολλ δ’ α%τ8ς λ γειν δκουν κρε!ττω τ7ς συνη&ε!ας κα0 e ο%δεπ,ποτε νε&υμ&ην, Or. 50.25). These dreams not only provide a connection to the god, but also assimilate Aristides’ source of inspiration to that of great literary figures of the past, bolstering his image as rival to the ancients. Aristides further emphasizes the importance of these dreams to his self-fashioning as a great rhetor when he states that he later incorporated these exalted dream orations into waking

See above p. 158. See also Asclepius’ dream message at 116, identical to one that appears at Or. 50.52. 43 Here as elsewhere, Asclepius sets himself up as an equal to the great ancient writers; on other occasions he recalls dreams that tell him he even excels them. For the god as guide, see also Or. 50.8. 44 See also 53, 75, 94, 102. 45 See also Or. 42.12. 41 42

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speeches and calls the dreams ‘the most valuable part of my training’ (κα0 μ"ν τ γε πλεστον κα0 πλε!στου ξιον τ7ς σκσεως T τ.ν νυπν!ων _ν *φοδος κα0 -μιλ!α, Or. 50.25). A more extreme version of assistance from the gods takes the form of divine possession during the course of an oratorical performance.46 By this tactic, Aristides absolves himself of responsibility for the offense he caused, since, as he claims, the god is truly in control. Aristides describes this experience as a series of quasi-physical sensations, heightening the suggestion of the god’s presence: the light of god comes over the speaker; it possesses his soul like a drink from the springs of Apollo, and it fills him with intensity and warmth and cheer (114). He compares those possessed to priests of Cybele (109) and Bacchants (114), both famous for their transgressive manner of worship. He also claims that inspired speech, once set in motion, is like an automaton, like an object moving by the force of its own inertia (111–112). And it is not the speeches of Aristides’ alone that are heaven-sent. ‘This is the one font of oratory’, he says, ‘the truly holy and divine fire from the hearth of Zeus’ and the speaker is figured as an initiate (λγων δ’ α[τη πηγ" μ!α, τ8 )ς λη&.ς Jερ8ν κα0 &εον πρ τ8 κ Δις στ!ας, 110).47 The upshot of this collection of mixed metaphors is the generalized connection between oratory and divine possession, which has a number of implications. For one thing, it defines the true rhetor by his communion with the god, implying that all others are shams. It also simultaneously censures anyone who criticizes Aristides’ remark for defaming the mystical art of oratory as a whole.48 To stress even more emphatically the importance of the god in sanctioning self-promotion, Aristides goes so far as to use divine involvement to trump the other arguments he himself is making. Aristides informs his audience that even if there were no precedents for selfpraise, divine possession would be enough to justify it, stating: Sστ’ εO κα0 μηδ να μηδ’ φ’ \ν8ς ε$δους ε$χομεν εOπεν π’ α%τF. τι φρονσαντα, μηδ’ _ν ναγκαον τ.ν λγων τ8 τοιοτον πK&ημα, TμAς δ’ εOς τατην - &ε8ς νν _γεν, ο%κ #ν τ πρεσβεα δ που συμφορ ν ποιομε&α. σ? δ’ αOτι>A τ8 σμβολον α%το το <τορος. (117) 46 Cf. the more common trope of poetic or rhapsodic possession, as depicted in Plato’s Ion 533d–536d, 542a–b. Aristides seems to be playing on the traditionally poetic triangulation of possession-prophesy-(misunderstood) truth. See Detienne 1967, 9–50. 47 Cf. the metaphor of Or. 34, Against Those Who Burlesque the Mysteries of Oratory, borrowed, according to Swain (1996, 255 n. 5), from contemporary Platonizing philosophy. 48 See also 105.

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Given that a very large portion of this text is taken up by literary and historical examples of self-praise that Aristides uses to justify his own, the effect of the counterfactual construction above is both to overwrite the earlier arguments and to prove twice over that Aristides’ self-pride is defensible. And, what is more, by the assertion that this behavior is the orator’s defining characteristic, Aristides strengthens his claim to be the consummate public speaker.

Aristides: the Critic’s Critic Next we will examine the relationship between these defense tactics and Aristides’ self-promotion. It has been noted that Aristides performs a sly maneuver in this speech by using the premise of a defense against the charge of self-praise to praise himself further, and the speech is indeed full of ruthless self-promotion.49 For instance, the examples Aristides uses implicitly compare him to (inter alia) great poets, mythical heroes, victorious athletes, conquering armies, and even Zeus himself.50 Selfaggrandizement is even implied by the premise of the speech in that it rests on Aristides’ claim to be so famous and important that he is the subject of others’ conversations. Likewise, the extensive length and the public performance of his response to what was originally a private critique further adds to the promotional value of the text. We might even suspect that there was no such critic and that the whole issue was invented purely for the sake of self-promotion.51 Regardless of

Rutherford 1995, 203. Though Plutarch uses several of the same sources to discuss self-praise, Aristides’ polemical rather than didactic tone and his explicit discussion of himself dramatically change the effect of these examples. 51 Isocrates, Antidosis 8–14 provides a classical model for the same tactic, but one in which the author is open about the fictionality of the attack against him. Isocrates explains this choice by stating that he is trying to avoid phthonos, an aim that Aristides does not seem to share. But, as in Aristides’ text, issues of truth and frankness figure large in the Antidosis, which is itself modeled on Plato’s Apology—see Norlin 1966, xvii; Too 1995, 192–193; Nightingale 1996, 28–29; Ober 1998, 260–263. For an extended discussion of envy in the Antidosis and in Isocrates generally see Saïd 2003; as well 49 50

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whether one believes the premise of this speech, Aristides seems highly concerned with individual glory throughout, even as he attributes that glory to the gods and presents it as a conduit for their glorification. A claim of divine favor is after all one more type of boast. Another method Aristides uses to promote himself in this work is a series of vicious attacks against his anonymous (and possibly invented) critic. Aristides’ avoidance of mentioning the critic’s name could be interpreted as part of an attempt to belittle him, a subtle hint that there was no such critic, or even an elaborate fiction to give the impression of belittling.52 In addition, every item of vituperation against this critic can be taken as an attempt to increase the status differential between him and Aristides, in some instances more explicitly than in others. This abuse includes suggestions that the critic is ignorant (μα&ς, 135), insolent, a slanderer, a meddler (Xβριστ"ν 'ντα κα0 συκοφKντην κα0 περ!εργον, 95), in need of re-education (μεταπαιδεειν, 3), and even nausea-inducing (πλεον D ναυτιAν, 1). More explicitly competitive remarks characterize the critic as wretched and far from the gods (&λιε κα0 πρρω &ε.ν, 103),53 call him a ‘nobody’ (ο%δε!ς, 97)54 who ought to be pleased if he is even allowed to attend Aristides’ speeches in the capacity of a slave (λλ’ γαπAν σοι προσ7κον, εO κα0 ν οOκ του τKξει παρ7σ&α τος γιγνομ νοις, 97), and speculate that he would probably like his children to turn out like Aristides (155).55 On the whole, it is clear that On an Incidental Remark is a sharply competitive, vindictive, and, above all else, self-promoting speech.

as Ober 1998, 258, 264; Cairns 2003, 244. Cf. also Lucian’s works in the genre of apologia (defense speech): Fisherman, Defense of ‘Portraits’, and Apology, which have raised comparable suspicions that the attacker is a fabrication. Similarly, at the end of Lucian’s A Slip of the Tongue (another contentious response to having committed an embarrassing error in speech), the author suggests that his critics may accuse him of inventing the story of his greeting gaffe merely for the sake of display (epideixis)—a reaction he provocatively seems to encourage as an indication of the quality of his prose (19). For more on rhetorical apologetics in Lucian and in the High Empire more generally, see Whitmarsh 2001, 291–293; id. 2005, 79–83. 52 The text does seem to suggest that the man’s name was intentionally excluded. See 3, 14, 73. Cf. Isocrates’ invention of a name for his pretend prosecutor at Antidosis 14. 53 In contrast to Aristides’ close relationship with them. 54 This comment can be taken to support the view that the critic is non-existent or the reading that sees Aristides as deliberately suppressing the critic’s name. 55 See also 8, 61, 113, 145.

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When we set these two texts against one another, sizeable differences in the authors’ attitudes become apparent. Overall, while both authors are negotiating the same tensions inherent in the issue of self-praise, their cultural roles and related generic aims cause them to approach the issue in strikingly dissimilar ways. Plutarch’s didactic, philosophicallyoriented piece focuses more on social cohesion while, in the context of Aristides’ self-promotional harangue, individual glory is more important. Differences also become apparent when Aristides calls justified pride a particularly Greek characteristic, a tactic that challenges his audience to condone his behavior or discard some part of their cultural tradition.56 For Plutarch, by contrast, such ‘Hellenizing’ ideology is beside the point: he is less interested in discussing whether a man merits pride in himself than in the modesty and subtlety that make possible harmony and political expediency (factors that could have real effects on how the Greeks lived under Roman domination).57 This attitude is not completely foreign to Aristides58—there are a few speeches where he promotes concord between Greek cities and avoidance of faction within then59—but his presentation of himself in On an Incidental Remark clearly takes no interest in interpersonal harmony.60

18, 152. Here we might compare the pragmatic advice of the Political Precepts, which urges local officials to avoid topics fraught with a kind of nationalistic pride, such as Marathon or Plataea, because the reaction they incite is harmful to the common good in the circumstances of Roman rule (814a–c). One might argue that the problem in this passage is that contemporary Greeks (compared to children trying on their father’s shoes or garlands) do not merit this pride, but in fact it is their ancestors in whom they take pride—it is only the actions to which this pride leads them that are inappropriate to the ‘present times and matters’ (παροσι καιρος κα0 πρKγμασιν, 814a). 58 Though cf. To Plato: In Defense of Oratory for self-referential comments on the limited relevance of contemporary oratory (Or. 2.430, quoted on p. 168 below), and also Or. 23.4 on what he characterizes as the rare opportunity to make his oratorical practice useful. 59 Or. 23, 24, 27. In fact, the opening of Aristides’ On Concord between the Cities scorns exactly the sort of behavior he is displaying in On an Incidental Remark, referring to oratory that is characterized by contentiousness (*ρις) and is not beneficial to the audience (Or. 23.1). On Or. 24, see Franco in this volume, esp. pp. 232–243. 60 Cf. e.g. Or. 24.15 on the value of friendship. Overall, Aristides puts much less emphasis than Plutarch on homonoia between individuals. Here we can once again compare Plutarch’s Political Precepts, this time on the potential for private quarrels to spiral out of control and cause large public problems: 824f–825f. 56 57

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Let us return now to Rutherford’s suggestion that the issue is a matter of decorum.61 There is something to this, as I suggest above, if we remember that decorum is never just decorum. In some sense the tension between Plutarch’s approach to self-praise and Aristides’ lies in an implied contest over the definition of what is suitable, that is, whether the social context or the man speaking is more important for determining what is appropriate. For Aristides, his relationship to the god even figures into the determination of oratorical kairos, the critical or opportune moment. Instead of referring to fitting one’s speech to its context or providing what is necessary for the public good at some critical juncture, as in Plutarch’s work on self-praise,62 kairos, according to Aristides, is the point at which not saying what is inspired becomes unbearable and impossible (115). In this passage and throughout the speech, it is clear that Aristides’ position in this pseudo-debate is one that considers fidelity to himself (and thereby to the god) to be the highest good.63 In considering these stances we can perhaps also look to the ways Plutarch and Aristides depict their own lives for parallels. Aristides’ avoidance of public office, as narrated in the Hieroi Logoi, raises the question of whether we should read these actions as a claim that Aristides’ allegiance to the god is a higher priority than responsibility to his fellow citizens. The great lengths to which Aristides goes to avoid public service are aimed partly at establishing his cultural status, since exemptions serve as official confirmations of their recipients’ perceived value. We should note as well that Aristides does in fact get involved in the affairs of Greek cities to some degree, for example in his intervention with Marcus Aurelius in favor of aiding Smyrna, his speech on behalf of Rhodes after a similarly devastating earthquake, and the speeches on concord mentioned above.64 But it is significant that he is willing to contribute only in the role of an orator and a go-between rather than providing any material help himself.65 Furthermore, whereas these texts See above p. 149. 539e, 542c, 545c, 546b. 63 This can be interpreted as supporting the view that religion took over as the primary determinant of identity in late antiquity (see e.g. Stroumsa 2005, 183–184). However, characterizing Aristides’ connection to Asclepius as a religious identity raises methodological problems concerning ancient religion that cannot be addressed here. Cf. also Plutarch’s role as priest of Delphi, which was a part of (rather than something set apart from) his public career; see Stadter 2004. 64 On the letter to Marcus and Commodus, see Quet 2006. 65 Cf. Or. 23.80, for the claim that oratory is a preferable kind of benefaction! 61 62

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blend self-promotion and political involvement,66 the Hieroi Logoi and On an Incidental Remark set Aristides’ rhetorical career at odds with any political participation required of him. By comparison, we might note Plutarch’s active public career, discussed most explicitly in the Life of Demosthenes (2.2) where he strikes a careful balance in presenting himself as both prominent abroad and loyal to home.67 Perhaps also significant is Plutarch’s address of On Inoffensive Self-Praise to a great benefactor to the cities of Greece.68 These very different approaches to civic involvement illustrate the wide gulf between the priorities of Plutarch and those of Aristides regarding public life, and that gap also matches the disparity in their treatments of the issue of self-praise.

Conclusion: the Cost of Self-Praise Versus its Value What then do these two approaches to the issue of self-praise tell us about the contemporary concern surrounding writing and talking about oneself and about imperial-era political culture more broadly? The divergence between Plutarch’s and Aristides’ treatments of the issue can largely be attributed to the vast difference in the cultural roles they play as well as the genres in which they choose to work. But these roles and their associated genres do not exist in a vacuum. When we look at Plutarch’s and Aristides’ texts in conjunction with one another, a strong connection emerges between how one talks about oneself and what position one takes in relation to the political and social environment. Each of these works is trying to persuade its audience or reader of something. In Plutarch’s case, taking his advice on public selfassertion also involves privileging broader social stability over individual self-promotion. Likewise, if one excuses Aristides for praising himself

66

Cf. the orations of Dio Chrysostom addressed to eastern cities. For an extended discussion of self-presentation in the opening of the Lives of Demosthenes and Cicero, see Zadorojnyi 2006. On Plutarch’s public career, see Jones 1971, 20–21, 25–26 (contra Russell 1968, 130), and 28–30, 32–34 (though cf. Swain 1991, 318; id. 1996, 171–172 for warnings against the credulous acceptance of reports in the Suda and Syncellus of various imperial honors awarded to Plutarch in his dotage). 68 See above n. 3, although the reader is of course free to interpret the dedication as an attempt to correct the behavior of a man who bragged too much, benefaction being another form of self-aggrandizement (hence often denoted by the word φιλοτιμ!α). 67

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on the grounds that the nature of the man speaking is enough to justify what is said, this requires taking a stance that puts less value on public responsibility. The task of the politician in this period is trickier and more fraught than ever, and the same rhetorical skills needed for political effectiveness can be used to much more self-serving ends if the educated and privileged man chooses not to engage in local politics. I do not mean to suggest by this that the agonistic elite display culture of the High Empire is as a whole fundamentally incompatible with political engagement—far from it, as is illustrated by ample literary and epigraphic evidence.69 My point is rather that the culture of agonistic selfpromotion associated with epideictic oratory, in its privileging of the status of the individual, serves as one frame for discussions of self-praise in the Roman imperial era. At the same time, the political context creates another means of framing the issue by necessitating at least the appearance of solidarity on the part of the elites in order to maintain local stability and avoid Roman intervention. ‘Sophists’ are among the social and cultural types who, according to Plutarch, tend to selfpromote,70 but I want to make very clear that I do not mean to draw a facile correlation between epideictic, self-praise, and the avoidance of political responsibility. Rather, many options were open to those with rhetorical training.71 A rhetor who takes an active part in political life must negotiate between the requirements of these two contexts, and this negotiation necessitates putting limits on self-aggrandizement (as well as on other techniques of rhetorical display). The way to avoid these restrictions, as Aristides does, is to dodge one’s political responsibilities. An imperial-era Greek author’s discussion (and use) of self-praise therefore serve as an indicator of how he is handling this tension and to what degree he places his priorities with his own reputation or with the good of his community. 69 See Bowersock 1969. Bowie (1982, 29–44) emphasizes in response that this participation was simply part of normal elite activity and did not in itself set the ‘sophists’ apart, but this critique only supports my general point. Brunt (1994, passim, but esp. 26, 34–35), while rightly skeptical of taking details from the literary sources at face value, overstates the case for dismissing reports of the political significance of the ‘sophists’ for the Greek cities. See also Heath 2004, 277–331, on the continuing relevance of rhetorical training to various aspects of public life in the second and third centuries, as complementary to and often coexisting with participation in epideictic performance. 70 On Inoffensive Self-Praise 543e–f, 547e. But N.B. that philosophers are mentioned too (547e)! 71 As Heath has convincingly demonstrated. See n. 69 above.

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Because the statesman to whom Plutarch directs his advice operates within the larger hierarchy of the Roman Empire, he must of necessity be more careful than his classical predecessors in avoiding contentious self-promotion so that the remaining local Greek autonomy might not be lost. Plutarch’s ideal statesman recognizes that modesty is necessary for the politician, given the ‘weak state of Greek affairs’, but devotes himself to his city all the same (Political Precepts 824e). The flip side of this response is the rhetor who, in Aristides’ own words, ‘does not easily appear before the people with his oratory and engage in political disputes, since he sees that the government is now differently constituted’ (Or. 2.430). When an orator does not take part in political discourse, there is plenty at stake for himself because of the value of his rhetorical skill for self-promotion, but for the public the stakes as a whole are considerably lower.72

72 My thanks go to Tim Whitmarsh, Simon Goldhill, Marc Domingo Gygax, Joseph Streeter, the participants of the Aelius Aristides conference, and the editors and anonymous readers of this volume for suggestions and critiques. I am particularly grateful to conference organizer William Harris for allowing me to join such a distinguished program.

part three ARISTIDES AND THE ROMAN EMPIRE OF HIS TIMES

chapter nine AELIUS ARISTIDES AND ROME

Laurent Pernot Aristides sang the praises of the Roman emperors and of the Roman Empire in many of his works: in the Smyrnean Orations, in the speech To the Cities Concerning Concord, in the Panegyric in Cyzicus, in the Funeral Oration in Honor of Alexander of Cotiaeum, and of course, in his speech To Rome. He repeatedly expressed the greatest respect for the emperors; he celebrated the advantages of Roman rule, and he asked the gods to keep the imperial family in their favor. Such a display of loyalty is not surprising from a man who was a member of the provincial nobility, possessed Roman citizenship and had numerous contacts with influential Romans and even with the imperial court. Scholars have often said and written, and rightly so, that Aristides is representative of the fidelity of Greek-speaking elites to the Roman Empire. He contributed to what L. Robert called, in a phrase that summarizes the spirit of the age, ‘la symbiose gréco-romaine dans l’empire romain’.1 Aristides’ works are marked by the ideology of concord and consensus, an ideology that he himself shaped and spread with the aid of epideictic rhetoric. On account of its elevated language and cultural and moral authority, as well as the public and ceremonial conditions of performance, epideictic rhetoric gave political messages persuasive force. All of these facts are known, and I myself have contributed to some extent to establishing them in regard to the rhetoric of praise and to the speech To Rome in particular.2 Therefore, the subject of the present paper may seem paradoxical. It is thus necessary to begin with some preliminary comments. Reading and re-reading Aelius Aristides, with a view to the edition being prepared for the Collection des Universités de France by an international team based in Strasbourg, my attention was

1 2

Robert 1970, 16. Pernot 1993a; id. 1997.

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piqued by passages that seemed to me to contain dissonances, cracks and doubts regarding the Empire and the emperors. These passages betray, often implicitly, a sort of malaise; they seemed to be worthy of an explanation. Generally speaking, there are two reasons that make it possible and likely, a priori, that Aristides could have had reservations about or hesitations towards Rome. Behind the brilliant façade, certain complex factors were at work. The first reason is of a personal and psychological order. When Aristides went to Rome in 144 AD at the age of 26, his stay in the capital was extremely difficult, since it was at that time that his illness first began (or, more precisely, the series of illnesses that would overshadow the rest of his life). In Rome, as he himself wrote in his Sacred Tales, he suffered greatly. The doctors were powerless to help him, and after a certain amount of time he ended up going back to his homeland, where Asclepius took over the responsibility for his care. The time spent in Rome, during which he probably delivered his speech To Rome, looks like a failure. In any case, Aristides chose to describe it in precisely this way in his Sacred Tales. During his first stay, Rome disappointed Aristides, a sentiment that C.A. Behr described with these expressive words: ‘Rome, the stage of his ambitions, became the cemetery of his hopes’.3 One should not overlook the fact that, in Aristides’ personal history, Rome was first associated with sickness and failure, circumstances that could have exerted an influence over the way that he judged the city. Second, it is necessary to take into account a reason drawn from historical sociology. Here it will be enough to indicate an idea that deserves a much longer discussion. In brief: it was not the case that in accepting and cooperating with Roman rule, the Greeks were deeply satisfied with it; nor did they completely adhere to it, despite seeing advantages in it; nor did their privileged position within the Roman Empire blind them to other aspects of their situation. The Greeks were convinced of their distinctiveness and their superiority in regard to other peoples, even the Romans. One should not accept too quickly the impression of enthusiastic support for Rome that some ancient speeches give, and it is very possible that the authors’ experiences were, in reality, more complicated. There is always dissatisfaction: it

3

Behr 1968, 24.

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would not be wise to postulate total unanimity or uniformity. On the one hand, the cooperation and accord between Greeks and Romans within the Roman Empire was a reality; on the other hand, some Greeks of the Imperial Era had mixed feelings towards the glorious Hellenic past and the Roman Empire.4 It is well known that authors like Dio of Prusa and Lucian, for instance, in some of their works and in some periods of their lives, uttered critical judgments of the Roman Empire or fostered a difficult relationship with it. Unlike rebellious and philosophical types like Dio and Lucian, Aristides outwardly resembled an applied panegyrist, the good student in the class. Yet even good students can have misgivings. Here, then, are two reasons that might lead one to think that it is not impossible that Aristides could have had ambivalent feelings towards Rome. It is neither a matter of frontal attacks, nor of being ‘pro-Roman’ or ‘anti-Roman’. We are not speaking of opposition or dissidence, phenomena that did exist in other contexts in the Roman Empire.5 It is more a question of psychological complexity and subtle undertones. Indeed, it is interesting to note that some scholars have recently begun to take into account the less obvious aspects of Aristides’ writings and their polyvalent meaning.6 The present study will examine the emergence of an ambivalent attitude, first in passages from The Sacred Tales, in which Aristides writes about significant dreams and biographical events, and then in passages from other discourses, where the thoughts of the author seem to be expressed in veiled terms. This dossier is composed of texts that have never before been put together, and it could certainly be enriched by the addition of other passages. It should be clear to the reader that this is a case study, centered on Aristides alone. It is not intended as a study of the immense and much disputed question of the relations between Greeks and Romans as a whole.

4 On these mixed feelings see e.g. Schmid 1887–1897, I.38–40 n. 13; W. Schmid in von Christ 1920–1924, II.664–665; Bowie 1970; Reardon 1971, 17–21; D’Elia 1995, 108; Veyne 1999; id. 2005, 163–257. 5 Fuchs 1964; MacMullen 1966; Giovannini-Van Berchem 1987; Rudich 1993; id. 1997. 6 Klein 1995; Quet 2002, 86–90: ‘Les silences volontaires d’Aelius Aristide’; Franco 2005, 401–408: ‘Selezioni e omissioni’; P. Desideri, in Fontanella 2007, 3–22: ‘Scrittura pubblica e scritture nascoste’.

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laurent pernot 1. Aristides Rebels in the Name of Asclepius

Dreams and a Biographical Anecdote Our first text, taken from The Sacred Tales, is an account of a dream. It is a dream, however, that has its roots in actual events from Aristides’ life: προσειπντος δ4 κμο κα0 στKντος &αμασεν - α%τοκρKτωρ, )ς ο% κα0 α%τ8ς προσελ&cν φιλσαιμι. κγc εBπον @τι - &εραπευτ"ς ε$ην - το Ασκληπιο· τοσοτον γKρ μοι Zρκεσεν εOπεν περ0 μαυτο. ‘πρ8ς ο`ν τος λλοις’, *φην, ‘κα0 τοτο - &ες μοι παργγειλεν μ" φιλεν οXτωσ!’· κα0 @ς, ‘ρκε’, *φη· κγc σ!γησα. κα0 ]ς *φη, ‘κα0 μ"ν &εραπεειν γε παντ8ς κρε!ττων - Ασκληπις’ (Or. 47.23).7

When I too saluted him and stood there, the Emperor wondered why I too did not come forward and kiss him. And I said that I was a worshipper of Asclepius. For I was content to say so much about myself. ‘In addition to other things’, I said, ‘the god has also instructed me not to kiss in this fashion’. And he replied, ‘I am content’. I was silent. And he said, ‘Asclepius is better than all to worship’.

When Aristides went to Rome in 144, he was welcomed by his former professor, the grammarian Alexander of Cotiaeum, who was living in the capital as one of the tutors of Prince Marcus, the future Marcus Aurelius. There is a hint of these events in two speeches, To Rome and The Funeral Oration in Honor of Alexander of Cotiaeum. In the Funeral Oration, the author recalls the eminent role that Alexander had with regard to the emperors, as well as how he helped Aristides during his visit. In 166, twenty-two years later according to C.A. Behr’s dating, Aristides, for unknown reasons, has a dream that takes him back to these past events (Alexander has been dead for fifteen years). In his dream, he sees Alexander introduce him to the reigning emperor, who was Antoninus Pius at the time of the events recounted in the dream. The ceremony at court included speeches (this rhetorical aspect of the situation in particular held Aristides’ attention). Alexander delivers an address to the emperor, and then the emperor responds, as do the members of his entourage. Then it is Aristides’ turn to speak, and the situation turns upside down. 7 Throughout this paper I have used the editions of Lenz-Behr 1976–1980 for Orations 1–16 and Keil 1898 for Orations 17–53. Translations of Aristides are from Behr 1981–1986.

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According to court etiquette, Aristides should have kissed the emperor (the Greek word used is the verb φιλεν). There are numerous sources that note the custom of saluting the emperor by means of a kiss that could be placed on the hands, the mouth, the eyes, the neck or the chest. In the court ceremony, the privilege of kissing the emperor is attested to most notably by Fronto.8 But Aristides refuses to pay homage to the emperor by giving him a kiss, as he is invited to do. The reason he gives for his refusal is that it is the will of Asclepius: he is, he says, ‘a worshipper of Asclepius’ (&εραπευτς),9 and the god has ordered him not to kiss the emperor in this manner. The text does not say any more about this, so we do not know why exactly Asclepius established this ban. The commentators on this passage have not found a precise explanation. But, in any case, the general sense of the scene is clear. Aristides adopts a peculiar manner, refusing to submit to court protocol and to pay the expected homage to the emperor, and his behavior is attributed to his bond with Asclepius. His identity as a devotee of Asclepius has given him a reserved attitude, an attitude almost of insolence, even of rebellion, that arouses surprise in the Emperor. One is tempted to compare this scene—mutatis mutandis— to stories of the acts of the martyrs, in which one sees Christians refusing to sacrifice in the context of the imperial cult, giving as grounds for their refusal the ties that unite them to their God.10 Here, luckily for Aristides, it is all a dream, and everything ends well. Antoninus recognizes in Aristides the quality of a &εραπευτς (using the verb &εραπεειν), and he accepts, without getting angry, that devotion to Asclepius comes before the respect due to an emperor. The following text is about a dream that Aristides had in 166, about two weeks later, and it illustrates a similar attitude:11 εBπον δ4 ο[τω πως· ‘Sστ”, *φην, ‘εO μ" γεγυμνασμ νος _ν ν &ε!αις 'ψεσιν, ο%κ ν μοι δοκ. <>αδ!ως ο%δ4 πρ8ς α%τ"ν τ"ν πρσοψιν ντισχεν, ο[τω μοι δοκε &αυμαστ τις εBναι κα0 κρε!ττων D κατ’ ν&ρωπον’. *λεγον δ4 &ε!ας 'ψεις, μKλιστα δ" νδεικνμενος τ8ν Ασκληπι8ν κα0 τ8ν ΣKραπιν

(Or. 47.38).

Fronto, Ad M. Caes. 3.14.3, with the commentary of Van den Hout 1999, 124, 185. See some contrasting views on the significance of this word in Festugière-Saffrey 1986, 130 n. 51; Schröder 1986, 26 n. 48. 10 See also Musurillo 1954, 242 for pagan parallels. 11 Compare Or. 27.39. 8 9

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laurent pernot I spoke somewhat as follows: ‘Therefore’, I said, ‘if I had not been trained in divine visions, I think that I would not easily endure this spectacle. So wonderful does it seem to me and greater than man’s estate’. I said ‘divine visions’, meaning especially Asclepius and Sarapis.

This time Marcus Aurelius appears to Aristides (evidently, the sophist was very preoccupied with emperors), together with the king of the Parthians, Vologeses III (whose presence in the dream is explained by the fact that it occurs during the time of the Parthian Wars). In his dream, Aristides sees himself giving a speech addressed to the two sovereigns. This speech, in technical rhetorical terms, is a διKλεξις or προλαλιK, that is to say a brief address serving as an introduction to the recitation of a longer work and containing compliments to the audience.12 In this address, Aristides tells Marcus Aurelius and Vologeses how happy and flattered he is to have the privilege of giving a reading of his works before them. He then adds that his divine visions have prepared him for the occasion and given him the ability to endure the gaze of the two sovereigns before whom he is standing. These words are certainly intended as a compliment, since Aristides emphasizes the superhuman character of the sovereigns and compares the spectacle that they present to those presented by the gods. But if he is comparing the two types of vision, Aristides does not assimilate them. He carefully distinguishes between divine visions, that is to say the apparitions of Asclepius and Sarapis that he has seen in his dreams, and the spectacle presented by the kings. The vision of the gods was an exercise, a preparation for the vision of the sovereigns. The word ‘exercise’ (εO μ" γεγυμνασμ νος _ν) is a flattering means of expression, but it does not imply that it is easier for Aristides to look at the gods than it was for him to look at the kings. On the contrary, it is because he was used to seeing the gods that he can ‘easily’ look at the sovereigns: he who can do more can do less. As in the preceding text, Aristides describes himself as being, above all, a man of Asclepius. When he appears before emperors and the kings, he is crowned with the glow of his relationship with the divine. In his dealings with temporal authority, he remains detached and distant since there is in him a spiritual richness by which he measures everything else.

12

Pernot 1993a, II.552.

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A third passage is again the account of a dream, one that takes place a little later than the others: - δ4 &αμασ ν τε [κα0] πειρ,μενος τ.ν λγων ντ0 πKντων τε *φη τιμAσ&αι χρημKτων α%το?ς κα0 πεπεν ‘τοτοις τος λγοις εO προσ7σαν κροατα0 @σον κα0 πεντκοντα’· κγc Xπολαβ,ν, ‘σο γε, *φην, βουλομ νου, βασιλε, κα0 κροατα0 γενσονται, κα0 @πως γ”, *φην, ‘&αυμKσMης, τατα e νυν0 λ γεις μο0 Xπ8 το Ασκληπιο προε!ρηται’ (Or. 51.45).

He was amazed; and when he had tested my speech, he said that he valued it at any price, and added, ‘Would that there were also an audience of about fifty present at this speech’. And I said in reply, ‘If you wish, Emperor, there will also be an audience and’, I said, ‘so that you may well be amazed, these things which you now say have been foretold to me by Asclepius’.

As at Or. 47.23, Aristides evokes the surprise of the emperor (who is Marcus Aurelius here): &αμασεν. As at Or. 47.23 and 38, Aristides invokes, while facing the emperor, his own relationship with Asclepius. What the emperor says had already been predicted by Asclepius, as a written text proves (that is to say the parchment on which Aristides noted the premonitory dream that Asclepius had sent to him). Once again, Aristides, in his connection to political power, displays a sense of superiority that comes to him from his company with the divine. These analyses may allow a passage of Philostratus to be clarified by giving it its full weight. The extract is taken from the biography of Aristides, written by Philostratus fifty years after his death. Philostratus says that he received this anecdote directly from Damianus of Ephesus, who was a student of Aristides:13 προσειπcν δ4 α%τ8ν - α%τοκρKτωρ ‘δι τ! σε’, *φη, ‘βραδ ως ε$δομεν’; κα0 - Αριστε!δης ‘&ε,ρημα’, *φη, ‘{ βασιλε, oσχλει, γν,μη δ4 &εωροσK τι μ" ποκρεμαννσ&ω οi ζητε’. Xπερησ&ε0ς δ4 - α%τοκρKτωρ τF. Z&ει τνδρ8ς )ς YπλοικωτKτFω τε κα0 σχολικωτKτFω… (Philostratus, Lives of the

Sophists 2.9.2 [582]).

The Emperor addressed him, and inquired: ‘Why did we have to wait so long to see you’? To which Aristides replied: ‘A subject on which I was meditating kept me busy, and when the mind in absorbed in meditation it must not be distracted from the object of its search’. The Emperor was greatly pleased with the man’s personality, so unaffected was it and so devoted to study… (trans. Wright). 13 Another version of the same anecdote can be read in the Prolegomena: Lenz 1959, 113–114.

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The scene takes place in Smyrna in 176 AD, near the end of Aristides’ life. Marcus Aurelius is passing through the city and is surprised that Aristides has not yet come before him to greet him. The great man is sought out and eventually brought before the emperor. Aristides’ excuse for not presenting himself to the emperor earlier is that he was absorbed in a ‘meditation’, a ‘contemplation’ (&ε,ρημα). The story does not tell us what this meditation was about. It is doubtful that the episode was due, as some scholars have suggested,14 to uncertainty on Aristides’ part about the proper protocol to follow from a political point of view. It was due, rather, to Aristides’ intellectual reflections and his preparation of a speech. In any event, the structure of the anecdote is similar to that of the episodes in his dreams: the absence of Aristides, the surprise of the emperor, a justification in terms of higher preoccupations, and the emperor’s acceptance of this justification. All of these texts converge to give the impression that Aristides took on an air of detachment in the face of his obligations as a Greekspeaking public figure and a Roman citizen. His devotion to Asclepius, in particular, could prevent him from paying the respect due to the emperor. In Search of Immunity Let us now consider the biography of Aristides and the problem of his refusal of official duties. It is well known that, in the Greek-speaking world of the second century AD, the wealthiest citizens were obliged to fulfill official duties by paying costly public and honorary expenses in accordance with the system of euergetism. Such duties were offered to Aristides several times in Smyrna and in the province of Asia, but each time he got out of this responsibility, taking advantage of the legal measures that provided an exemption for rhetoricians working as teachers. He expended a great deal of effort on obtaining the ‘immunity’ (τ λεια) from public expenses that he so desired, and he was eventually successful. He wrote about the struggle himself in his Sacred Tales: approximately half of the fourth Tale was reserved for this judicialadministrative saga. The fact that Aristides was looking to obtain an exemption does not signify, by itself, any opposition to Rome. We know that other

14

See Civiletti 2002, 569, 571–572, on this suggestion.

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rhetoricians and sophists were looking, like Aristides, to obtain this privilege. What is amazing it that Aristides discusses it at such length. G.W. Bowersock, who undertook an in-depth study of this episode in Aristides’ life, has observed, quite rightly, that the narrative is exceptionally detailed: ‘Thanks to [Aristides’] prolixity, we know more about his case than anyone else’s’.15 In general, one did not flaunt behavior that could pass for a refusal to fulfill one’s obligations. If Aristides displayed prolixity, it is, I suggest, because he had reason to do so, a reason that is made clear from the whole narrative of the Sacred Tales. By speaking at length about his efforts to avoid paying public expenses and about the problems that pitted him against his fellow citizens and the Roman authorities on this subject, Aristides constructs his own image of himself: the image of an exceptional man, whose talent was recognized, but who held himself apart on the margins of society and ordinary professional life because he was bound by membership in a superior order, that is, by his ties to Asclepius. Aristides felt that he possessed two identities: his identity as a public figure and his identity as a protégé of Asclepius. When he had to choose, he chose Asclepius. Aristides’ preference for Asclepius is what Or. 50.100–102 illustrates. The passage is an excerpt from the exemption narrative as the process is just beginning in 147—Aristides is 30, according to C.A. Behr’s chronology—and it ties together the twists and turns of the affair as a kind of comedy. Act One: The people and magistrates of Smyrna nominate Aristides for the high priesthood of Asia, but he refuses. By means of a speech, that is, through his rhetorical talent, he manages to persuade the assembly not to choose him (*πεισα). Aristides does not say exactly what arguments he used to decline the nomination. Probably, in view of the logic of the entire passage, his arguments had something to do with Asclepius. Act Two: After Aristides refuses the high priesthood, the assembly offers him the priesthood of Asclepius. It seems as though the Smyrnaeans were looking to catch Aristides in his own trap: since he has invoked his relationship with Asclepius, they take him at his word and propose to put him in charge of the service to the god to whom he has said he is particularly attached.

15

Bowersock 1969, 36.

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But our sophist had other resources, as Act Three shows. Resisting bit by bit, he declines the new proposition, saying that he needs an order directly from the god to accept the offer, an order that he has not received: κα0 οBδα ε%δοκιμσας οLς πεκρινKμην· *φην γ ρ )ς ο%δ4ν οNτε μεζον οNτε *λαττον οLν τ’ ε$η πρKττειν μοι νευ το &εο, ο%δ’ ο`ν α%τ8 τ8 JερAσ&αι νομ!ζειν ξεναι πρτερον, πρ0ν #ν α%το π&ωμαι το &εο. οJ δ’ &αμασKν τε κα0 συνεχ,ρουν (Or. 50.102).

And I know that I found approval with my reply. For I said that it was impossible for me to do anything, either important or trifling, without the god, and therefore it was not possible to think even of serving as a priest, until I had inquired about this from the god himself. They marveled and yielded.

Thus Aristides turns his fellow citizens’ arguments upside down. The close relationship between Aristides and Asclepius is, for the Smyrnaeans, a reason for him to accept the priesthood. For Aristides, on the contrary, it is a reason to refuse (since he can do nothing without the permission of the god, and in this case, such permission is lacking). The argument is completely turned around, as in a sophistic debate. Aristides himself emphasizes the skillfulness of his response, which allows him to win over the Smyrnaeans. Later, the Smyrnaeans make another attempt, forcing Aristides to call on the governor of the province, who gives him at least temporary respite. The reasons for Aristides’ refusal were many. One discerns a financial reason: if the temple of Asclepius was under construction, as the text says, the priesthood would have entailed covering some of the construction costs, which risked being very expensive. There were also psychological reasons: Aristides showed during his entire life that he had a solitary, irritable temperament. But above all, his devotion to Asclepius was the main reason. Aristides’ behavior appears to have been dictated by Asclepius. Aristides’ submission to the god was so great that he did not want to do anything without his permission. He was deprived of autonomy, as if dispossessed of himself. Public life and concern about general interest no longer counted for him, absorbed as he was in his exclusive relationship with the god. Therefore, service to Asclepius conflicted with integration into the city. In comparison with the dream texts examined above, these passages reveal a new angle on Aristides’ reluctance to fulfill his social duties.

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Aristides’ resistance to these duties appears not only when he is confronted by the emperor, but also when he is confronted by his city and his province. He resists all types of functions, municipal magistracies, as well as the priesthood, and even the priesthood of the imperial cult. It is a form of resistance to all official responsibilities, which placed him outside the political and social system. 2. Messages in Veiled Terms The Rhetorical Notion of ‘Figured Speech’ To complete this analysis, it is necessary to bring into play one last aspect of a rhetorical nature. If we admit that Aristides had reservations about Rome and the Roman Empire, these reservations could only be expressed in a subtle and implicit manner, first because Aristides might not have admitted these reservations to himself, and second because a frank expression of distance from Rome was inconceivable for a man of his social standing: it would have cost him his position in society and could have put him in danger. The reservations, if there were reservations, had to be expressed in a roundabout way. Dream narratives and autobiographical accounts, which we have been looking at until now, are two such oblique methods. There also exists in Greco-Latin rhetoric a theory and a practice of indirect expression that carries the name ‘figured speech’ (σχηματισμ νος λγος, figuratus sermo, figurata oratio). This important concept offers a key to a rhetorical reading of some of the passages from Aristides. By ‘figured speech’ ancient rhetoricians mean cases in which an orator has recourse to a ruse in order to disguise his intentions, using indirect language to communicate the point that he wants to make in an oblique manner. In this specialized use, the terms σχ7μα or figura (with the verbal forms σχηματισμ νος, figuratus) do not designate figures of style, but assume a particular significance and indicate a process that consists of saying one thing to mean another. Many theoretical texts, dating from the Hellenistic Age to the Imperial Age and Byzantium, deal with the technique of figured speech. Among Aristides’ contemporaries writing in Greek on the subject were Hermogenes (or Pseudo-Hermogenes), Apsines, and the Pseudo-

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Dionysius of Halicarnassus.16 Figured speech was widely used in Latin and Greek declamation, as can be seen in the Elder Seneca and Philostratus. There were different kinds of figured speech. One consisted of saying what needed to be said, but with gentleness and soft words; another kind, called ‘oblique’, consisted of saying one thing while making another meaning understood, that is to say, of introducing a supplementary level of meaning into the debate; finally, the type called ‘contrary’, which was particularly acrobatic, consisted of saying the opposite of what one really wanted to say and hoping that one would be understood by the audience a contrario. The main reasons why an orator resorted to these ruses were, according to the theoreticians, security and propriety. In the first case, the orator wants to avoid attracting the anger of the audience and putting himself in danger when he has something unpleasant to say. In the second case, he does not feel afraid, but feels obliged to respect certain norms lest he upset his audience, compromise his message, and fail to accomplish what he has set out to do. Such is the situation, for example, for one who must accuse a superior while recognizing that it is not in his best interests to do so openly. It is a technique of doublespeak, then, that rhetoric made available to its practitioners. This technique was used not only in schools of rhetoric and in literary criticism, but also in actual discourse, as passages from Demetrius’ On Style and Quintilian indicate.17 Thus rhetoric furnishes us with a concept whose usefulness is not slight, if figured speech can indeed allow us to better decipher ancient works, and in particular those of the rhetorical authors of the Imperial Age. This trail has hardly been explored, since figured speech has been studied by scholars primarily from a narrowly technical point of view. It is logical to apply this key to Aelius Aristides, because Aristides, a grand orator and an expert in rhetorical matters, was not ignorant of the notion of figured speech. The verb σχηματ!ζεσ&αι appears in his work, with technical validation. Aristides is talking about his own method of debate against Plato, and he emphasizes: γc μ4ν γ ρ

16 Hermog. Inv. 4.13; Meth. 22; Apsines On Fig. Probl.; Ps.-Dion. Hal. Rhet. 8–9. On figured speech, see Ahl 1984; Ahl-Garthwaite 1984, 82–85; Schouler 1986; Desbordes 1993; Chiron 2003; Calboli Montefusco 2003; Heath 2003; Morgan 2006; Milazzo 2007, 46–125. More references, ancient and modern, in Pernot 2007a and Pernot 2008. 17 Demetr. On Style 287–295; Quint. Inst. Or. 9.2.74.

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φαινμην ο%δ’ ν α%τος τος ναγκα!οις ποτμως τF. λγFω χρ,μενος, λλ πεφεισμ νως κα0 σχηματιζμενος τ πρ ποντα (‘Even in the neces-

sary points clearly I did not argue brusquely, but with restraint and in a decorous way’, Or. 4.33). The last words, σχηματιζμενος τ πρ ποντα, are probably an allusion to the sort of figured speech that consists of softening the blame in order to respect social propriety, ε%πρ πεια.18 Aristides also isolates another type of figured speech. The author is addressing his adversaries, who are reproaching him for not giving classes in oratory, while couching this reproach in terms of flattery by saying that he could give excellent classes…if he only wanted to. But Aristides sees through their game: he is perfectly aware that they are only praising his talent as a teacher to better reproach him for not practicing it. He unveils their tactic by saying: βλασφημετε μετ’ ε%φημ!ας (‘you malign me with your praise’), an expression that defines the strategy of disguising blame as praise (Or. 33.25). We will come back to this device later. Still another passage, from Oration 28, is more or less the same as the previous quotation, that is, censure disguised with apparently favorable words: πολλ τοιατα χαρ!ζετο το παραδ ξασ&αι τ"ν αOτ!αν TμAς (‘he attempted to ingratiate himself in many such ways so that we might admit the charge’, Or. 28.2). Let us also add as a subsidiary consideration the fact that figured speech is to be seen in a larger framework. It must be restored to its intellectual context, which is constituted by the precise techniques of encryption and deciphering that had currency in the ancient world. Such techniques were, for example, the genre of the fable, a narrative incorporating an implicit or explicit meaning; enigmas and oracles that called for deciphering and interpretation; Socratic irony, which offers another case of double meaning; the notion of ambiguity (μφιβολ!α); allegorical interpretation; judicial interpretations taking into consideration the spirit behind the letter of the law; and the interpretation of dreams. This long list can only be itemized in a cursory manner. Nevertheless, these examples prove that the Ancients were used to understanding speeches without having to have every word spelled out for them. The practice and the theory of the double entendre are ubiquitous, appearing in literature, philosophy, law, religion, and medicine.

18

8.2.

For ε%πρ πεια in figured speech, see Demetr. On Style 287–288; Ps.-Dion. Hal. Rhet.

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In the field of rhetoric, a striking example is offered by the funeral oration delivered by Socrates in Plato’s Menexenus. This speech purports to be an encomium of Athens from the point of view of the city’s historical and political achievements. It was taken seriously by most readers, and only in recent times has it been fully recognized as ironical and parodical.19 The case of the Menexenus illustrates the possibility that a rhetorical speech could play with the rules of praise and convey concealed messages accessible only to part of the audience and some readers. Now it is time to return to Aristides’ texts. We will present remarks on an entire discourse, whose very conception and construction are revealing, before examining specific passages. The Implicit Significance of To Rome Both in its structure and its style, To Rome follows the rules of the rhetorical encomium.20 The orator starts by emphasizing the difficulty of the subject, then describes the place and situation of Rome. He next praises at length the civil and military organization of the Empire before finishing with a brilliant synthesizing tableau. The presentation involves a large number of comparisons; the tone is admiring and hyperbolic. In all these respects, Aristides’ demonstration is in accordance with encomiastic norms. But the speech is interesting for what it does not say. In more than thirty pages, representing approximately one hour of speaking, Aristides finds a way to say nothing about the origins of the city, the relations supposedly shared between the Greeks and Romans, or the stories surrounding the founding of Rome. He says nothing about the history of Rome. He completely neglects its monuments, architecture, art, literature and language. He says not one word about Romulus, the Scipios, Caesar or Augustus. He contents himself with refering once to Aeneas, through an allusion to Homer. He does not mention a single Roman proper name, nor does he speak a word of Latin. How should one interpret these omissions? It would have been appropriate to mention such points in an encomium of Rome. Consequently, one has to deal with a series of deliberate choices. Aristides 19 See e.g. Méridier 1931, 51–82; Clavaud 1980; Loraux 1981; Coventry 1989; Tsitsiridis 1998. 20 For the following analysis see Pernot 1997, 5–53.

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wants to see Rome only as the imperial capital, the city from which the rule over the provinces was exercised. He chooses to consider only the current state of affairs and the present functioning of the Empire in the political domain, which leads him to avoid local color, as well as all the artistic, religious, mythological, and historical facts (those which concern Rome, of course, since there are abundant references to Greek mythology and history). The only Roman fact that interests Aristides is the rule that Rome exerts over the Empire, and, more precisely, the Roman links to the Greek-speaking provinces, the provinces to which he belonged. This is why the speech To Rome is actually a discourse in honor of the Roman Empire and the manner in which this empire exerted control over the Greek world. Aristides is very careful not to express any contempt for Roman history and civilization: he simply does not talk about them. By reducing Rome to nothing more than a governmental power and neglecting the rest, he imposes a Hellenocentric point of view on the speech. In addition, there is a second series of notable omissions in the speech: omissions concerning the Roman conquest. Aristides avoids saying that the Roman Empire was forced upon the Greeks. At the very most he allows himself to allude to the traditional play on the word <,μη, which means both ‘Rome’ and ‘force’ (in section eight).21 But he does not develop this idea. He says nothing about the Roman conquest or the military and political processes that led to the installation of Roman rule over the Greek world.22 What is brought into play here is silence, eloquent silence, a device attested to in the rhetoric of figured speech. The theorists of figured speech observe that sometimes orators can be confronted with a ban on speaking that they do not have the right to break; for instance, in the judicial sector, there might be such a ban on speaking about a case of incest, which would be indecent to mention, or about a deed at the limits of legality; or, in the public domain, about past crimes protected by an amnesty law forbidding mention of them. The theory of figured speech concerns the case where the orator is confronted with a heavy and well-known situation, of which he does not have the right to speak and to which he can refer only implicitly.23 On this traditional play see Rochette 1997. Along the same lines, see F. Fontanella’s conclusion in this volume. 23 See for instance Quint. Inst. Or. 9.2.74: Ita ergo fuit nobis agendum ut iudices illud intellegerent factum, delatores non possent adprendere ut dictum, et contigit utrumque (‘I therefore 21 22

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In the case of To Rome, the secret that everybody knows about is that of the ‘ruling power’.24 This heavy truth weighed on the speech, but Aristides could not allow himself to speak about it openly. He therefore proceeded by means of an omission, an omission so drastic that is becomes significant in itself as the carrier of a hidden message. To summarize, Aristides suggests that Rome consists merely of the imperial power that it exercises, that its history and culture do not matter, and that the only important issue, in the eyes of the Greeks, is the reality of the authority to which they are subjected. As it was too risky, Aristides thought, to express this opinion directly, he made it understood indirectly. Therefore, this speech is much less flattering than has previously been thought, and it incorporates a certain audacity. Aristides suggests that the Empire is a system imposed on the Greeks from the outside and that the Greeks have submitted according to the rule of the stronger without feeling any admiration for Roman civilization and culture. Such is, we can believe, the encrypted message of To Rome, a deeply realistic and embittered message if one knows how to read between the lines. Aristides weighs his praise, and he concentrates on what he approves of, namely the material benefits of Roman peace. As for the rest, he makes himself understood without having to spell out his meaning by suggesting that Roman culture does not matter and that Roman rule must be endured with pragmatism. The Hidden Key We can now turn to the examination of some scattered passages that express Aristides’ disenchanted attitude towards the Roman Empire. The device of ‘figured speech’ that is implemented here could be had to plead in such a way that the judges understood what had happened, but the informers could not seize on any explicit statement. I succeeded on both counts’, trans. Russell); Hermog. Inv. 4.13, (Rabe 206): κατ *μφασιν δ στιν, @ταν λ γειν μ" δυνKμενοι δι τ8 κεκωλσ&αι κα0 παρρησ!αν μ" *χειν π0 σχματι λλης ξι,σεως μφα!νωμεν κατ τ"ν σν&εσιν το λγου κα0 τ8 ο%κ ξ8ν εOρ7σ&αι, )ς εBνα! τε νο7σαι τος κοουσι κα0 μ" πιλψιμον εBναι τF. λ γοντι· (‘It is by implication whenever we are not able to speak

because hindered and lacking freedom of speech, but in the figure of giving a different opinion we also imply what cannot be spoken by the way the speech is composed, so that the hearers understand and it is not a subject of reproach to the speaker’, trans. Kennedy); Apsines, On Fig. Probl. 27 (Patillon 120): κατ παρKλειψιν κα0 ποσι,πησιν (‘by omission and abrupt pause’). On significant silence in general, see Montiglio 2000. 24 According to the title of Oliver 1953.

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called the ‘hidden key’; it involves a particularly recherché variant on the general method of saying one thing while suggesting something different. It is a question in this case of slipping a parenthetical remark into a speech that casts a new light onto the whole argument. The process is analyzed by Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who perceived the model of this process in the texts of Homer and Plato: ‘What is this art? It is, after having spoken on a subject that carried conviction, to introduce at the end, incidentally, the most pertinent subject’ (α[τη ο`ν T τ χνη τ!ς στι; τ8 π’ λλης Xπο& σεως πεπεικυ!ας πρτερον εOπντα π0 τ λει )ς πKρεργον ρρ!πτειν τ"ν οOκειοτ ραν Xπ&εσιν, Rhet. 9.6= Usener-Radermacher 335). The orators who use this process, according to Pseudo-Dionysius, begin by developing at length an opinion that the audience already agrees with, then throwing out ‘as an afterthought’, ‘at the end’, an additional point, which is the one in which the orator truly believes. In any other speech, such unevenness in composition, which produces the effect of an inverse proportion between the essential and the incidental, would be quite a grave error. But the peculiarity of ‘figured speech’, that prodigious art, is that all that is vice elsewhere here becomes virtue, as the theorists are fond of repeating. I would like to draw the attention to three passages that fit this definition. ‘The City is Almost as Fortunate as Before’ In the Panathenaic, Aristides sings the praises of Athens. He reviews the history of the city from mythological times to the battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), which established the rule of Macedonia over Greece. Here, he stops, on account of a lack of time, or so he says. A development on the dissemination of the Attic dialect follows, and then the orator seems to remember that the history of the world did not stop in the fourth century BC. In a brief chapter dedicated to the honors received by Athens, he comes back to the Macedonians in order to emphasize that they, after defeating Athens, treated the city with particular consideration. In this passage he slips in two sentences about the present situation to show that once again Athens enjoyed special treatment: τοσοτον \τ ρως T πλις πρKττει τ νν, @σον ο% πραγματεεται. τ δ4 τ7ς λλης ε%δαιμον!ας μικρο δεν παραπλσιK στιν α%τM7 τος π’ κε!νων τ.ν χρνων, @τ’ εBχεν τ7ς =ΕλλKδος τ"ν ρχ"ν … π0 δ4 τ7ς πKντα ρ!στης κα0

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Now the only difference in the city’s condition is that it is not involved in troublesome affairs. But for the rest, it is almost as fortunate as in those times, when it held the empire of Greece… Under the one (sc. empire) at present existing, which is in every way the best and greatest, it (sc. Athens) has precedence over all the Greek race, and has fared in such a way that no one would readily wish for its old state instead of its present one.

Aristides acknowledges that the situation of Athens has changed, and he makes it clear that the new situation is due to the ‘current empire’, that is to say the Roman Empire, which he does not name (although the scholia on this passage do).25 Following the method to which we are beginning to become accustomed, Aristide expresses no criticism. On the contrary, he extols the happiness of Athens under the power of the Roman Empire, and he displays his own loyalty by expressing the wish, twice, that this power would last forever, in accordance with the custom of praying for the immortality of the Empire. Under Roman rule Athens is happy, because it is set free from the political and military responsibilities that it had assumed before and enjoys honors and supremacy among the Greeks. In sum, the city is rid of all the inconveniences of power and only the advantages remain. Is everything better then? Let us take a look at the text more closely, and take note of two nuances: Athens is today ‘almost’ (μικρο δεν) as happy as it was in the past, and one would not ‘readily’ (<>αδ!ως) wish for it to return to its former state. If one gives to these words their full weight, they betray some reservation and throw doubt on the encomium of Rome being pronounced. In the same passage, again concerning the present situation of Athens, the phrase ε$ τFω κα0 τοτων φ!λον μεμν7σ&αι (‘if someone wishes to mention these points too’) also conveys the impression that the current state of affairs is not the favourite subject of the orator, who prefers to praise the past.26 Out of a hundred pages of mythological and historical account, these remarks occupy a total of ten lines. Yet they raise the essential question Dindorf 1829, III.308–309, 311, 312. Or. 1.335. The scholiast rightly comments: κ το εOπεν ε$ τFω κα0 τοτων φ!λον μεμν7σ&αι δε!κνυσιν @τι, εO κα0 τ παρντα &αυμαστK, λλ’ ο%χ οLα τ πρσ&εν, pν κα0 μεμν7σ&αι μAλλον κα0 &αυμKζειν προσ7κεν (Dindorf 1829, III.321). 25 26

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of the situation of Athens in the Roman Empire (and, through Athens, the situation of all the Greeks), and suggest that the evaluation of this situation, which was the heart of the problem of Greece under Rome, is not so simple. For precisely this reason, Aristides did not want to keep silent on the subject, but neither did he wish to address it head-on. He deemed that it would be cleverer and more prudent to resort to the strategy of ‘figured speech’ by slipping into his text, fleetingly, words with far-reaching implications. That ‘almost’ (μικρο δεν) is a nugget of truth. It was up to his audience and his readers to discover it and draw conclusions from it themselves. ‘Seeing that the Situation is Other’ In the speech To Plato in Defense of Oratory, Aristides offers an assessment of the Greek situation under Rome identical to that found in the Panathenaic Oration and expressed in the same terms: ‘the situation is other’: εO το!νυν τις κα0 τοιοτος γγ νοιτο οLος <ητορικ"ν *χων εOς μ4ν δμους <>αδ!ως μ" εOσι ναι, μηδ4 περ0 πολιτε!ας μφισβητεν -ρ.ν \τ ρως *χοντα τ πρKγματα…(Or. 2.430).

If someone should be of such a nature so that he does not easily appear before the people with his oratory and engage in political disputes, since he sees that the government is now differently constituted…

The Defense is an immense treatise, in which Aristides presents a detailed defense of rhetoric in response to the accusations that Plato brought against it in the Gorgias. The argument is conducted in the terms that Plato had established, and it is by drawing on Platonic concepts and examples that Aristides tries to make his point of view triumph in a refutation conducted across the centuries. At the end of his work, Aristides turns to the figure of the ideal orator, who embodies all of the qualities of rhetoric. He comes to refer to his own case as an example of a life consecrated to eloquence in all of its purity, untouched by concern about popular favor, wealth or any other form of material success: this example of a disinterested way of life may serve as an argument to refute the reproach of flattery that was often addressed to the followers of rhetoric. Yet although Aristides speaks of himself in the third person, he does not hesitate to take his audience into his confidence, sketching the portrait of a person who is at the same time an orator and a good man and writing the words printed above.

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The whole passage, which is complex, deserves a detailed reading.27 The words that count, in view of the issue of ‘figured speech’, are the last ones: -ρ.ν \τ ρως *χοντα τ πρKγματα (‘seeing that the situation is other’, or, in the translation of C.A. Behr: ‘since he sees that the government is now differently constituted’). The reader has had to wait until section 430 of the discourse to come across this remark, which is thrown in as though it were an afterthought, but is in reality of great importance.28 The words signify that the situation has changed between the time of Plato and that of Aristides, since the Greeks are now under Roman rule.29 Leaving aside for the moment the problem raised by Plato, Aristides finally refers to current events. He acknowledges the political situation and recognizes that this change has had an impact on rhetoric, insomuch as the Greeks orators of the Roman Era, contrary to their predecessors of the Classical Era, are no longer in a position to treat the important issues that concern their lives and the functioning of their cities. Let us understand what Aristides wants to suggest here. With this remark, he does not at all intend to undermine his own argument. Everything that he has said previously remains valid because the debate about rhetoric, according to Aristides, keeps presenting itself through the ages. The aspects of rhetoric that Aristides deals with earlier in the speech by means of the Platonic schemas (the political, philosophical and mystical worth of rhetoric) have lost none of their topicality in the second century AD. The present remark does not, therefore, nullify the debate; rather, it gives it another dimension. It invites the reader to examine the changes that have occurred during the Imperial Era and to make an inventory of those in the sphere of rhetoric, as Tacitus does, for example, in the Dialogue on Orators, or as ‘Longinus’ does in the treaty On the Sublime, or Plutarch in the Political Precepts. Such an inventory would be the subject of a long speech, which Aristides did not want to write for reasons of his own and about which we can only speculate. These reasons have something to do with discretion and prudence, love of subtlety, and probably a period of political abstention and withdrawal related to the author’s illness and his exclusive devotion

See Flinterman 2002; Pernot 2006, 91–92, 136 n. 31, 255–256. Perhaps there already was an allusion to the Pax Romana in section 411. The concept of a ‘remark made in passing’ is important in Aristides: see Or. 28. 29 So, rightly, the scholia on this passage: Dindorf 1829, II.146; III.430. 27 28

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to Asclepius. Aristides was fully aware of the pertinence of his subject, namely the changes that had occurred in Greek rhetoric as a result of Roman rule. He was keen to address it, but in his own way: he suggests its importance through a remark made implicitly in one sentence. The strategy was clear for those who knew how to listen for it. ‘The Divine Quality of Empire’ Our last example is taken from the Sicilian Orations, which are a pair of antithetical declamations concerning an episode from the Peloponnesian War. The historical context of the declamations is the Sicilian expedition as it is depicted in books six and seven of the history of Thucydides. Since the Athenian expeditionary corps sent to conquer Sicily had encountered difficulties after its arrival on the island, a debate took place in the winter 414–413 BC in Athens before the public assembly to decide if it would be expedient to send a second army to help the first. Aristides imagines the speeches that could have been delivered on that occasion, his first orator opining in favor of sending reinforcements, the second in favor of recalling the expedition.30 In the first Sicilian Oration, however, as the argument begins to come to an end, we suddenly read the following assertion: ‘Now here one would see best the divine quality of empire. For it preserves itself ’ (νν δ’ ντα&α δ" κα0 κKλλιστα $δοι τις #ν )ς &εον τ8 χρ7μα τ7ς ρχ7ς· α%τ" γ ρ \αυτ"ν σ,ζει, Or. 5.39). In this context, the sentence applies to the Athenian Empire. The orator, who is speaking in favor of sending reinforcements, means to say that the annexation of Sicily would be valuable to the stability of the Athenian Empire as a whole, since it would consolidate its power. The hypothesis that comes to mind, however, is that this sentence could also have been aimed at the Roman Empire. Indeed, Aristides conducted parallel analyses of the Roman and Athenian Empires in the speeches To Rome and The Panathenaic Oration respectively, and he carefully compared these two empires in To Rome.31 Such a comparison was made all the easier by the fact that the word meaning ‘empire’, ρχ, is the same in Greek in both cases. In addition, the passage from the Sicilian declamation contains themes that are found in To Rome—

30 31

On these texts see Pernot 1992. Or. 26.40–71.

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the divine nature of the Empire, the wishes formed for its health32—and a precise verbal echo connects the two texts.33 If the declamation has a contemporary resonance, it would seem to be, at first glance, praise for Rome, discrete homage paid to the reigning power. But perhaps the reality is more complex. Upon examination, the passage from the Sicilian declamation is revealed as encomium engineered to self-destruct. In fact, immediately after stating that the Empire is divine, the orator presents it in a less favorable light: Sσπερ γ ρ ν τος Oδ!οις ο$κοις \ν0 μ4ν κα0 δυον οOκ ταιν χαλεπ8ν χρσασ&αι, οJ δ4 πολλο0 κατ λλλων XπKρχουσιν, ο[τω κν τας δυναστε!αις τ8 πλ7&ος τ.ν δεδουλωμ νων βεβαιο τ"ν Oσχ?ν τος προσειληφσι· πKντες γ ρ ν κκλFω δεδ!ασιν λλλους … χειρω& ντες γ ρ ν&ρωποι πολλο0 κα0 παντοδαπο0 γ νος ο%χ 5ξουσιν ποστροφν, λλ πAν τ8 μ" περαιτ ρω το παρντος κακ8ν Sσπερ 5ρμαιον Tγσονται τος @λοις πειπντες (Or. 5.39).

For just as in private homes it is difficult to employ one or two servants, but many servants are a foil against one another, so in empire the number of the enslaved strengthens the power of those who have added them to it. For everyone fears each other in turn… For when many men of various races have been defeated, they will have no refuge, but in complete despair they will regard as their good fortune every evil which does not exceed the present one.

The subjects are unfortunate and oppressed; rule rests upon force. These details radically modify the encomium. And there is more: not only is the Empire cruel, it is also perishable, as history has proven. The Sicilian expedition failed. Athens lost the Peloponnesian War, and the Empire collapsed. The allusion to the Roman Empire, if there is one, thus proves to be ambiguous. We may read it as a compliment to Rome, if we consider only the first line of the excerpt. We may also imagine that the text suggests an opposition between the situation of Athens in the fifth century BC and that of Rome in the second century AD (Rome being superior to Athens in the art of governing). But we can also see here, and this will seem more plausible, a parallel between the Athenian and Roman Empires. In this case we are dealing with praise that turns to blame in a way that conforms exactly to the process analyzed by Aristides himself in the passage from Oration 33 mentioned above.34 Notably Or. 26.103–109. Compare Or. 5.39 (οJ δ4 πολλο0 κατ λλλων XπKρχουσιν) with Or. 26.56 (μ νοντες μ4ν π’ λλλους XπKρξουσιν α%τος). 34 Above, p. 181. 32 33

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The word ‘divine’ (&εον), used in section 39 of the first Sicilian Declamation, deserves consideration. The pious Aristides does not use a term like this lightly. The beginning of the sentence celebrates the Empire as divine, but the rest of the passage and the following events show that it is, in reality, the complete opposite of divine, since it is lacking the two qualities essential to divinity in the minds of Aristides and his contemporaries: concern for mankind and eternity. The orator indicates that the Empire inspires fear and despair in its subjects (therefore there is no solicitude towards mankind), and the course of events will show that the Athenian Empire is destined to disappear (therefore it is not eternal). The Empire (the Athenian Empire, but perhaps the Roman Empire as well) lacks both philanthropy and immortality. It is impossible not to be suspicious towards an argument that appears so self-contradictory in light of its precise correspondence to the device of the ναντ!ον (‘opposite’ or ‘contrary’), which appears in the classificatory schemas of the theorists of figured speech. Hermogenes: ναντ!α μ4ν ο`ν στιν, @ταν τ8 ναντ!ον κατασκευKζωμεν, οi λ γομεν (‘Problems are “opposed” whenever we are arguing for the opposite of what we actually say’).35 Pseudo-Dionysius of Halicarnassus: τρ!τον σχ7μK στι τ8 οLς λ γει τ ναντ!α πραχ&7ναι πραγματευμενον (‘A third figure consists of making sure that the opposite of what one says is effected’).36 Is the point of this speech only to denounce the deceptions and the dishonesty of the imperialists of the fifth century BC, as Thucydides had already done? Or are we not dealing with an argument with broader implications, one that suggests that the value of the Roman Empire could be a matter of dispute? Regardless of what one says, the passage suggests, the Empire’s aim is not the wellbeing of its subjects. No matter what one says, empires can fall apart. No matter what they say, the panegyrists can be mistaken. Aristides, the man who, in his dreams, stood up to Marcus Aurelius, might have revealed with a sort of bitter irony and in a text where such sentiments would be least expected that he had no illusions about the generosity or the immortality of Roman supremacy, no more than about the speeches in honor of the Roman Empire. For those who knew how to read it, he delivered a philosophy on empire.37 35 36 37

Hermog. Inv. 4.13 (Rabe 205), trans. Kennedy. Ps.-Dion. Hal. Rhet. 8.2 (Usener-Radermacher 296). Aristides also writes that every empire rests on inequality and the law of the

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To conclude, let us quote a passage from Tacitus’ Dialogue on Orators. This passage is not related to rhetoric but to tragedy, and thus has the advantage of reminding us that the problem of the unsaid in rhetoric is part of the larger problem of the unsaid in literature. Maternus, the famous advocate and poet, has presented a tragedy titled Cato, which has displeased the emperor and the court because of the contemporary allusions that they believe they have recognized in it. A friend asks Maternus if he intends to suppress what could have given rise to such a negative interpretation: An ideo librum istum adprehendisti ut diligentius retractares et, sublatis si quae pravae interpretationi materiam dederunt, emitteres Catonem non quidem meliorem, sed tamen securiorem? (Tac. Dial. 3). Or is it with the idea of going carefully over it that you have taken your drama in hand, intending to cut out any passages that may have given a handle for misrepresentation, and then to publish a new edition of ‘Cato’, if not better than the first at least not so dangerous? (trans. W. Peterson).

But Maternus refused to change his text. The concept of interpretatio put forth here is important, because it shows that the unsaid is, to some extent, a matter of appreciation. The study of the unsaid must be conducted with prudence, since it necessarily requires a certain amount of speculation about the interpretation. The advantage of ‘figured speech’ consists precisely in the fact that, pushed to a certain degree of refinement, it disconcerts the censors by making a simple and univocal interpretation impossible. Certain people understand the overtones, others do not, and even those who do understand them may be incapable of proving that they exist.38 Multiple layers of comprehension and an absence of certitude are inherent features of ‘figured speech’. That is why we, the modern scholars, must learn to read between the lines. strongest, and that the differences between the various empires are differences of degree, not of nature. See Or. 1.306: :πασα γ ρ δπου&εν ρχ" τ.ν κρειττνων στ0 κα0 παρ’ α%τ8ν τ8ν τ7ς Oστητος νμον (‘For every empire obviously belongs to the stronger and is contrary to the very law of equality’); Or. 28.125: … τ8ν τ7ς φσεως νμον, ]ς κελεει τ"ν τ.ν κρειττνων Xπερβολ"ν ν χεσ&αι κα0 ζ7ν πρ8ς τ8 Tγομενον (‘…the law of nature, which commands us to endure the excesses of the stronger and to live in accordance with our leaders’). 38 As happened to Quintilian’s delatores: see above, n. 23.

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In the case of Aristides, if we consider the passages presented above, an attitude of reserve towards Rome becomes apparent. The rhetorical notion of ‘figured speech’ offers us an objective standard with which to read texts that may admit of multiple layers of meaning. Aristides has a number of resources—such as dream narratives, autobiographical confessions with the character of aretalogy, eloquent silences, and hidden keys—that permitted him to slip discrete messages into his works. He could therefore distance himself from the rules of encomium. One may wonder how Aristides’ reservations interacted with the approval and the loyalty that he felt towards the Roman Empire in other respects. Certainly there was a kind of contradiction. The reservations did not form any conscious system or program. The moments of dissonance were of limited scope; they did not command the whole of Aristides’ mind, but revealed its inner tensions. Indeed, the reservations expressed by this important figure were consistent with the high opinion that he had of his art and himself, as well as with his conviction that he had a message to deliver. Fundamentally, Aristides’ reservations towards Rome were due to two reasons: he was Greek and he was a disciple of Asclepius. These two identities, which are not on the same level, made him pull back. As a Greek, Aristides seems to have felt a sort of tension as a result of the discrepancy between his situation and the opinion that he had of himself. Even though he cooperated with Rome, he remained Greek. He belonged to a ruled people, but one that regarded itself as superior on account of its language, culture, religion, and history. From this identification come the jolts of pride, the cunning phrases, and the embittered remarks that we see here and there and that cannot be ignored (as one might be tempted to do if one accepts Aristides’ protests of loyalty at face value); on the contrary, it is important to probe these remarks in his works. The occasional betrayal of Aristides’ unease about subjects that touched on the contemporary political situation deserves our consideration. But Aristides was not a Greek like the others. He was the protégé and the servant of Asclepius, and his relationship with his god was close and constant throughout his entire life. Behind the official image of a Greek-speaking public figure, one discerns an intense religious experience.39 This was a solitary experience, even if Aristides was surrounded

39

Sfameni Gasparro 2002, 203–253; Pernot Forthcoming.

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by friends, fellow worshippers and his companions at the Asclepieion. Aristides did not define himself by membership in a community, but by his individual course of action. If one has a strong personal identity, one risks not knowing one’s place in the laws of society. This is what happened to Aristides. We observe, in a very interesting way, that for Aristides, devotion to Asclepius ended up in conflict with his civic duties to Smyrna and the province of Asia Minor, as well as to the Empire and his relationship with the emperor. The testimony of Aristides is particularly enlightening as concerns the strength and the specific details of the religion of Asclepius in the second century AD in the Roman Empire. Finally, there is another question, which is impossible to answer fully in the space allotted, but which is nevertheless worth asking. The question is just how original Aristides was compared to other men of his era. When we read the Sacred Tales, we get the impression that we are dealing with a very unusual personality. And yet, if we go back to the different points addressed in this paper, it is possible to draw parallels between Aristides and his contemporaries every time. As we said at the beginning, among those Greek orators who were likely to voice criticism about Rome, one finds, for example, Dio of Prusa and Lucian. Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists contains several anecdotes about sophists standing up to the emperors.40 Figured speech was widely used. In one case, concerning Herodes Atticus, Philostratus considers the possibility of figured speech in an address to Marcus Aurelius.41 The devotion to Asclepius was widespread among intellectuals (e.g. Apuleius, Polemo of Laodicea, Antiochos of Aegae, Hermocrates of Phocaea), and it is very possible that among them were those who, like Aristides, lived a life of deep personal commitment and selflessness, even if they did not write a work comparable to the Sacred Tales to publicize it. Aristides’ case also displays parallels with the contemporary personas of the holy man and the thaumaturgist, who are gifted with supernatural powers thanks to their proximity to the divine and who played a charismatic role in society. Some of them could have clashed with Rome, as Apollonius of Tyana and Peregrinus of Parion did. Peregrinus leads us to the Christians, whom we can consider in terms of sepa40 See also a similar anecdote, in which the authority of Asclepius is invoked, in Galen, De propriis libris 3.4–5. 41 Philostr. Vit. soph. 2.1.11 (561).

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ration from society and resistance in the face of imperial power. One could compare the periods during which Aristides lived as a recluse— chaste, emaciated, unbathed, and willing to renounce everything for his god—with a certain type of asceticism and the life of a hermit. Through his suffering, his willingness to bear witness, and his vague desire to rebel against the emperor, Aristides is at times reminiscent of the martyrs. Like some Christians of his time, Aristides was ready both to accept and to rebel against the Empire. This does not mean that there was a Christian influence on Aristides, but that there are points of encounter and similarities between Christians and the orator that can be explained by a common spirituality (on a general level) and by the spirit of the times. Therefore, the expressions of malaise that can be observed in Aristides are interesting not only because they reveal his own inner tensions, but also because they build bridges between him and contemporary trends.42

42

I warmly thank Professor Brooke Holmes for her editing of this text.

chapter ten THE ENCOMIUM ON ROME AS A RESPONSE TO POLYBIUS’ DOUBTS ABOUT THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Francesca Fontanella In the so-called second introduction of his Histories, Polybius explains the reasons that led him to end his work not in 167 BC (the date when Rome completed its conquest of ‘the whole inhabited world’, 1.1.5), as he originally intended, but in 146 (the year of the destruction of Carthage and Corinth).1 He maintains (3.4) that it is impossible to form a definitive judgement on the victors or the defeated if one only considers ‘simply the results of the military conflict’, because it has often happened that what seemed to be the greatest successes have as a result of misuse brought the greatest disasters in their train…. Therefore I must add… an account of the subsequent policy of the victors and how they ruled the world, and consider the reactions of the defeated and their behaviour towards their rulers… For it is clear that this will show our contemporaries whether the domination of Rome is to be avoided or rather to be desired, and will show posterity whether Roman power is to be judged worthy of praise and imitation or of blame … Neither historical actors nor those who write about them should think that the aim of every undertaking is to win and to subjugate everyone else… in fact all men act with the aim of obtaining the pleasure, honour or profit that will result from their action.

Among the ‘posterity’ who took on the task of delivering this judgement on the Roman Empire we can obviously count the Mysian rhetor Aelius Aristides. Some 300 years after Polybius, probably in 144 AD under Antoninus Pius,2 he pronounced in Rome his encomium To Rome, most definitely determining that the city and its empire were worthy of ‘praise’ not ‘blame’. But the link between Aristides’ speech and Poly1 This paper draws on the conclusions reached in my commentary on To Rome: A Roma, trans. and comm. by F. Fontanella (Pisa, 2007). It has been translated by W.V. Harris and I would like to thank him also for giving me the opportunity to publish this paper. 2 Cf. my comm., p. 79.

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bius’ Histories is not merely an interesting a posteriori indication of how the Greek élite had shifted, by the time of the Antonines, from problematical support for the Roman Empire to enthusiastic acceptance. To Rome lets us see, behind its detailed references to passages of Polybius, a new interpretation of Roman power that seems to constitute a conscious response to the historian’s doubts. A response that takes account of centuries of Greek political theory—in so far as it was relevant—, and also of Roman thinking on the problem of what made the extension of Roman power to the whole world not only ‘just’ but also ‘advantageous’. Aristides, like Polybius, intends to judge the Empire by reference in part to the relations between rulers and ruled and by the benefit it may provide to both; he says so explicitly (To Rome sect. 15). After an opening passage describing the size, magnificence and prosperity of the capital (sects. 4–13), he shifts attention from the city to its empire (ρχ) with a transition that emphasizes the superiority of the Roman Empire over the empires of the past: ‘it is not easy to decide whether Rome’s superiority to other cities of its time, or the Roman Empire’s superiority to past empires, is the greater’ (sect. 13). The comparison with past empires starts with the Persians (sects. 15–23), continues with Alexander (sects. 24–26) and the Macedonians (sect. 27), and ends with the various hegemonies of Greek cities (sects. 40–57). Polybius (1.2.1) had differentiated Rome’s dominion from that of the Persians, Spartans and Macedonians, simply by reference to their size and duration. Aristides on the other hand introduces at the very beginning of these comparisons (sect. 15) the criteria that were formulated in Polybius’ second proem: let us consider everything in order, both its [the Persian Empire’s] size and what happened during its existence. That means that we must examine both how they enjoyed their conquests and how they treated their subjects.

On the basis of these criteria, the characteristics of the Persian Empire are examined and then condemned without the possibility of appeal: These then were the ways they enjoyed their famous power. And they suffered the consequences dictated by a law of nature (φσεως νμος): hatreds and plots on the part of people who were treated like this, and defections and civil wars and constant strife and ceaseless rivalries. These were their rewards, as if they ruled in consequence of a curse rather than in answer to their prayers, while the subjects underwent all that which the subjects of such men must of necessity undergo… A boy’s good looks caused his parents to be afraid, a wife’s good looks had the same effect

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on her husband. It was not the biggest criminals but the wealthiest who were condemned to destruction (sects. 20–21).

The mention of a ‘law of nature’, understood almost as a necessary unfolding of effects following from causes, may certainly make one suspect Stoic influence on this passage of Aristides,3 given in particular the Stoic identification of the λγος not only with φσις but also with the εJμαρμ νη.4 We recall, however, that Polybius too, when he spoke about the birth of the various forms of government and of their degeneration (at the beginning of Book VI), several times used expressions such as φυσικ.ς (6.4.7), κατ φσιν (6.4.9 and 11 and 13; 6.5.1; 6.6.2; 6.9.13) and φσεως οOκονομ!α 6.9.10) to indicate a natural and therefore necessary unrolling of political-constitutional changes in the various states (cf. 6.10.2: ναγκα!ως κα0 φυσικ.ς). In fact he combined with his theory of the anacyclosis of constitutions a ‘biological theory’5 already detectable in Anaximander6 and widely favoured by Greek thinkers. (It was widely diffused in Greek thought: in its more general formulation it amounted to no more than the statement of a natural law that determines the birth, growth and degeneration of everything,7 though ‘by the Hellenistic period it was identified with the Stoic εJμαρμ νη’).8 Aristides therefore seems to have followed Polybius in attributing the manner of a state’s evolution to a law of nature that is reminiscient in both works of the Stoic concept of the εJμαρμ νη. Aristides’ conclusions about the Persians were also inspired by classical Greek thinking that distinguished between the δεσπτης and the βασιλες,9 thinking that in this case was echoed not only by Cf. Klein 1983, 74 n. 27. See, for example, Zeno, SVF 1, 160, Chrysippus, SVF 2, 912–1007, and Pohlenz 1948–1949, I 101–102. 5 Walbank 1957–1979, I, 645. 6 12 B 1 D–K. 7 Walbank 1972, 142. 8 Walbank 1957–1979, I, 645, with the sources. 9 As is well known, the Persian king is already called δεσπτης in the sense of absolute ruler in Herodotus (e.g. 1.90.2; 115.2), and Plato (Laws 697c) asserts, also with respect to the Persians, that τ8 λε&ερον λ!αν φελμενοι το δμου, τ8 δεσποτικ8ν δ’ παγαγντες μAλλον το προσκοντος, τ8 φ!λον π,λεσαν κα0 τ8 κοιν8ν ν τM7 πλει. Plato also distinguishes two kinds of monarchy, tyranny and kingship, depending on whether it is based on violent constraint or free acceptance, on poverty or wealth, and on law or illegality (Plt. 291e, but cf. also Rep. 576e; for the assimilation of the terms τραννος and δεσπτης see further Laws 859a). According to Xenophon (Mem. 4.6.12), such a distinction had already been formulated by Socrates. Aristotle (Pol. 1285a) emphasizes the difference between a βασιλε!α … κατ νμον, like that of Sparta, 3 4

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Polybius10 but also in Roman political thought:11 The reason was that the Persians did not know how to rule and their subjects did not cooperate, since it is impossible to be good subjects if the rulers are bad rulers. Government and slave-management were not yet differentiated: king and master were equivalent terms. They did not proceed in a reasonable manner towards great objectives. For the term ‘master’ applies properly within the circle of a private household, and when it is extended to cities and nations, the role is hard to keep up (sect. 23).

While it is more plausible to suppose that Aristides draws here on Greek political thinking of the classical period, without having to rely on Polybius as an intermediary, that seems not to apply to the sections concerning the comparison between Rome and the hegemonies of the Greek cities. Here the traces of Polybius are easily detectable in certain judgements about Greek history: Aristides, like Polybius (6.43), connects the victory of Thebes at Leuctra in 371 BC with the mistakes made by the Spartans and the hatred that all the Greeks felt for them (To Rome 50). Aristides’ assertion (in the same passage) that it would have been better if the Cadmeia had stayed in Spartan hands and if Sparta had not been defeated by Thebes is more comprehensible if one takes account of the fact that public opinion, which Polybius gives voice to in 4.27, had firmly condemned the surprise occupation of the citadel of Thebes carried out in 382 by the Spartan general Phoibidas. Finally, the general judgement of the Greeks given in To Rome, extending to all of them ‘what has been said about the Athenians’ (sect. 51), seems to and an λλο μοναρχ!ας εBδος, οLαι παρ’ ν!οις εOσ0 βασιλεαι τ.ν βαρβKρων. *χουσι δ’ αiται τ"ν δναμιν πAσαι παραπλησ!αν τυρανν!σιν …; and, according to Plutarch in De Alexandri Magni Fortuna aut Virtute (Mor. 329b), Aristotle advised Alexander to behave τος μ4ν bΕλλησιν Tγεμονικ.ς, τος δ4 βαρβKροις δεσποτικ.ς (the source of this story must have been Eratosthenes, as is indicated by Strabo 1.4.9). 10 Polybius claims (6.4.2) that ‘one cannot call every monarchy a kingdom, but only one that is recognized by the common will of its subjects and rules more by persuasion than by terror or violence’. 11 The distinction between βασιλες and δεσπτης or τραννος was made use of by the first emperors, who according to the sources (Suet. Aug. 53, Tib. 27; Tac. Ann. 2.87, 12.11; Cassius Dio 57.8.2) refused the Latin title of dominus and the Greek δεσπτης. It is theorized, in a Stoic fashion, by Seneca (Clem. 1.11–13, with a description of the distinguishing characteristics of the rex and the tyrannus), by the younger Pliny (Paneg. 45, with the distinction between principatus and dominatio), and by Dio Chrysostom, who in his Orations on Kingship (on which see Desideri 1978, 283–318) constructed a theory of the monarchical form of government as distinct from the tyrannical form of government (1.22, 2.77, 3.43–44): cf. also André 1982, 29–43, Hidalgo de la Vega 1998, 1023–1051.

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echo12 the observations formulated by Polybius in Book VI, when he emphasizes the inability of the Athenians to rule in peace-time: And what has been said about the Athenians is perhaps also true for all the Greeks: they were better than anyone at resisting foreign rulers, at defeating the Persians and the Lydians, and at knowing how to deal properly with both prosperity and adversity; but they were not trained to rule, and when they tried they failed (To Rome 51). The Athenian people behave like a crew without a captain: as long as fear of the enemy or the threat of a storm prevails on the sailors to cooperate with each other and obey the captain, everything on the ship goes perfectly. But when their confidence comes back and they begin to disregard the officers and debate among themselves…, then some of them let out the sheets while others disagree and furl the sails… Something similar has happened a number of times to the city of Athens: having been saved from serious dangers by the valour of the people and its leaders, it has recklessly got into trouble in times of peace and tranquility (Polyb. 6.44.3–5).

The sections of To Rome dealing with the comparison with the Greek world show, however, how Aristides, while recalling Polybius, sanctions the superiority of Rome over the Greeks and draws on motifs that belonged to Roman imperial ideology. I well know that Greek achievements will appear even more insignificant than the Persian ones I have just examined, both with respect to the extent of their power and with regard to their political importance. But to surpass the barbarians in wealth and power, and the Greeks in political wisdom and moderation (σοφ!>α κα0 σωφροσνMη), seems to me to constitute an irrefutable argument in favour of your valour as well as the most glorious subject for my oration (sect. 41).

What this σοφ!α and σωφροσνη consist of is made clear in section 51, where the Greeks are recognized as being superior to all other peoples in wisdom, and the Romans in ‘knowing how to rule’: I wanted to show precisely that before you the art of ruling did not even exist. If it had existed, it would have been among the Greeks, who certainly distinguished themselves above all other peoples in every form of wisdom. In fact this art is a discovery of your own, which has been extended in the meanwhile to all other peoples (sect. 51). 12 Cf. Oliver 1953, 924, who hypothesizes that Polybius and Aristides used a common source, perhaps Anaximenes of Lampsacus, in giving their judgements on the Athenians. But see Fontanella 2007, 114–117.

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In this case too Aristides’ judgement recalls Polybius Book VI in some ways: the latter of course linked the success of Roman expansion to the superiority of Rome’s form of government over the constitutions of the Greek cities. But since Polybius’ comparison does not concern methods of ruling subject peoples, we can fairly confidently say that Aristides is now making use of the Roman point of view,13 which had previously been set out by Cicero (Tusc.Disp. 1.1–5)14 and then rendered canonical by Vergil (Aen. 6. 847–853): excudent alii spirantia mollius aera credo equidem, uiuos ducent de marmore uultus, orabunt causas melius, caelique meatus describent radio et surgentia sidera dicent: tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento hae tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem, parcere subiectis et debellare superbos.

The same judgement recurs in a passage of To Rome in which Aristides firmly ties the vastness and power of the Roman Empire to Roman superiority in the art of governing, in such a way as to make Roman expansion unproblematic, indeed an essential precondition for the realization of ‘good government’: What had eluded practically everyone before was reserved for you alone to discover and perfect. And that is not at all surprising, for just as in other spheres the skills come to the fore when the material is there, so when a great empire of surpassing power arose, skill too accumulated and entered into its composition, and each was reinforced by the other. Because of the empire’s size, experience necessarily accrued, while, because of your knowledge how to rule, the empire flourished and increased justly and reasonably (sect. 58).

In this last half-sentence one can, I think, hear an echo of the theories elaborated by Panaetius in the mid-second century B.C. in his work Περ0 το κα&κοντος and taken up by Cicero in De Officiis.15 Even one who denies, like Ferrary, the Panaetian origin of the justification of Roman imperialism in Book III of Cicero’s De Republica,16 has to admit that Panaetius apparently taught the Romans in Περ0 το κα&κοντος Cf. Desideri 2003. Where the author, while recognizing Greek primacy in science and literature, claims superiority for the Romans with respect to social and political institutions and the art of war. 15 Gabba 1979. 16 Cic. Rep. 3.37–39, on which see Ferrary 1988, 363–374. 13 14

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that power is only legitimate and durable if exercised with justice, that is to say in the interest of the subjects, and that greatness and glory are only genuine if they are founded on justice and subordinated to reason.17 Aristides clearly thought that Panaetius’ lesson had been thoroughly absorbed by the Romans (De off. 1.13: ‘nemini parere animus bene informatus a natura velit nisi … utilitatis causa iuste et legitime imperanti’), and that their empire had grown ‘justly and reasonably’. Rome’s ‘imperial vocation’, which distinguishes it from all other peoples, is explained in sections 68 and 91 of To Rome by means of the well-known theory of the ‘natural’ rule of the ‘better’: It is not safe to rule without power. The best alternative [to ruling] is to be governed by one’s betters, but you have by now shown that this is in fact the best situation (sect. 68). For you alone are rulers according to nature, so to speak… Since you were free right from the start and had immediately become rulers, you equipped yourselves with all that was helpful for this position, and you invented a constitution such as no one ever had before, and you prescribed for all men rules and fixed arrangements (sect. 91).

The idea that there exist by nature some men fit to rule over other men who are destined to obey, and that this unequal relationship is in the interest of both parties, is certainly traceable to the Politics of Aristotle,18 however one wants to understand the Aristotelian concept of a law of nature.19 At Rome this theory was taken up by Cicero in Laelius’ speech in Book III of De republica, in reply to the criticisms of those who, like the philosopher Carneades in 155 B.C., had condemned Roman expansionism in the name of iustitia. Laelius, in his reply to Furius Philus (who is made the spokesman of Carneades’ complaint), defends the legitimacy of the Roman Empire on the basis of the premise that

Ferrary 401–424, esp. 424. Arist, Pol. 1252a–1255a, where we find the famous demonstration that slavery is according to nature. 19 Cf. Fassò 2001 [1966–1970], 72–75. In particular, for a parallel to the whole of section 91 (Xμες ρχοντες … κατ φσιν. οJ μ4ν γ ρ λλοι οJ πρ8 Xμ.ν δυναστεσαντες δεσπται κα0 δολοι λλλων ν τF. μ ρει γιγνμενοι … ξ ρχ7ς 'ντες λε&εροι κα0 οLον π0 τ8 ρχειν ε%&?ς γενμενοι), see, for example, Arist. Pol. 1252a: … ρχον δ4 φσει κα0 ρχμενον δι τ"ν σωτηρ!αν. τ8 μ4ν γ ρ δυνKμενον τM7 διανο!>α προορAν ρχον φσει κα0 δεσπζον φσει, τ8 δ4 δυνKμενον [τατα] τF. σ,ματι πονεν ρχμενον κα0 φσει δολον· δι8 δεσπτMη κα0 δολFω τα%τ8 συμφ ρει; 1254a: κα0 ε%&?ς κ γενετ7ς *νια δι στηκε τ μ4ν π0 τ8 ρχεσ&αι τ δ’ π0 τ8 ρχειν; 1255a: @τι μ4ν το!νυν εOσ0 φσει τιν4ς οJ μ4ν λε&εροι οJ δ4 δολοι. 17 18

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nature dictates that power should be exercised by the best people, in this case the Romans, justly and in defence of the interests of the weaker: ‘An non cernimus optimo cuique dominatum ab ipsa natura cum summa utilitate infirmorum datum?’ (Cic. De rep. 3.37). Later on, Dionysius of Halicarnassus was to exhort his readers not to grieve over the fact that they had to submit to the power of Rome, on the grounds that this had come into being in a just and proper way and was like a natural law that time cannot destroy. The law is that those who are superior will always rule over those who are inferior: μτε χ&εσ&αι τM7 XποτKξει κατ τ8 εOκ8ς γενομ νMη (φσεως γ ρ δ" νμος :πασι κοινς, ]ν ο%δε0ς καταλσει χρνος, ρχειν ε0 τ.ν Tττνων το?ς κρε!ττονας) (Dion. Hal. Ant.Rom. 1.5.2). Modern scholars, while almost unanimously recognizing the Aristotelian origin of this theory, divide into those who affirm and those who deny the mediation of Panaetius and/or Posidonius in adapting it to the Roman Empire.20 Since Augustan times this formulation had become ‘canonical’,21 so it is difficult to identify the source from which it reached To Rome. But when Aristides in section 91 writes κατ φσιν, it is possible to recognize a more specific reference to the theory of a law of nature (a reference that is explicit earlier, in section 20), that is to say to a theory that found its most complete ancient expression in Stoicism: we find this theory mentioned in two fragments of Posidonius22 from which I think that it is reasonable to deduce that he used exactly this kind of argument to justify Roman imperialism.23 The possible echo of Panaetius traceable in sect. 58 and those of Posidonius in sects. 68 and 91 could therefore allow us to identify a Middle Stoic influence on Aristides which probably came to him through Dionysius.24 We should remember in any case that the arguments of Aristides in sects. 58 and 91 and of Dion. Hal. 1.5.2 had clear-cut precedents in Cicero, who certainly knew and made use of the works of both Panaetius and Posidonius.25 20 In favour: Capelle 1932, 98–104, Walbank 1965, 13–15, Garbarino 1973, I, 37–43, Pohlenz 1948–1949, I, 206, Gabba 1990, 211, Gabba 1996, 172. Against: Strasburger 1965, 44–45 and n. 50, Gruen 1984, I, 351–352, Kidd 1988, 297, Ferrary 1988, 363–381. 21 Gabba 1996, 172. 22 Poseidonios F 147 and F 448 Theiler, with the latter’s comm. (vol. II, p. 385). 23 Capelle 1932, 98–101, Walbank 1965, 14–15, Gabba 1996, 172. 24 Cf. Fontanella 2007, 118 and 143–146. 25 This idea of Rome’s vocation to rule other peoples persists in Cicero’s last works. See Phil. 6.19: ‘Populum Romanum servire fas non est, quem di immortales omnibus gentibus imperare voluerunt … Aliae nationes servitutem pati possunt, populi Romani est propria libertas’.

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The passage in which Aristides interprets Roman constitutional arrangements as a ‘mixed constitution’26 shows once again how he reworked a tradition that went back to classical Greece but had subsequently been elaborated and transformed in both the Hellenistic and Roman worlds. However your political system is not like any other but is a mixture of all of them (κρAσις Yπασ.ν τ.ν πολιτει.ν), without the disadvantages of any of them; hence it is precisely this system of government that has turned out to be successful. If you consider the power of the people and how easily they obtain everything they desire and ask for, you will think that it is a democracy, apart from the single fact that it avoids the mistakes that the people make. If you look at the Senate deliberating and exercising power, you will conclude that it is a perfect aristocracy. But when you look at the overseer and chairman of all this, thanks to whom the people are able to obtain what they desire and the few are able to govern and wield power, you will see the man who possesses the most perfect monarchy, free from the evils of tyranny and above the prestige of a mere king (sect. 90).

The model of the ‘mixed constitution’ was present in the Greek political debate from the fourth century BC, as we can see from both Plato and Aristotle.27 It was taken up by Peripatetic and Stoic thought in the third century out of ‘a desire to define the relationship between the βασιλες, the ruling class of the cities and the mass of the people within the new Hellenistic πλις’.28 The first person to have applied this schema to Rome (and therefore not just to any πλις but to an imperial power) had been Polybius, who had asked himself the question ‘how and with what form of government (π.ς κα0 τ!νι γ νει πολιτε!ας) the Romans had in only fifty-three years conquered and subjugated almost the whole inhabited world’ (6.2.3; cf. 1.1 and 64). Polybius had identified

26

It is to be observed that in the Panathenaikos too (1.383–388) Aristides applies the scheme of the mixed constitution, though in a diachronic fashion, to the transition at Athens from monarchy to aristocracy and finally to democracy, remarking at the same time how in each of these phases the three elements were to a certain extent combined. In fact the description of a city’s political system and in particular praise for its mixed constitution were considered obligatory themes in panegyrics on cities (Menander Rhetor 1.3, sects. 359–360 Russell and Wilson; Pernot 1993a, I, 211), though that does not mean that in Aristides’ case the theme lacked ideological content (either in To Rome or in the Panathenaikos). 27 Plato (Laws 712d) interprets the Spartan political system in this fashion, while Aristotle (Pol. 1273b) applies it to Solonian Athens. 28 Carsana 1990, 15.

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the monarchic element in the Roman system in the consuls, the aristocratic element in the Senate and the democratic element in the popular assemblies: a system of reciprocal checks between these three elements was able to maintain them in equilibrium in such a way as to make this form of government stable and not liable to decay like ‘pure’ systems of government (cf. Polyb. 6.11–18). Undoubtedly Aristides’ identification of the aristocratic element with the Senate looks like a rhetorical anachronism that owes much to the classical model of the mixed constitution and to Polybius,29 and the reference to the text of Polybius is undeniable (see especially 6.11.12).30 But let us remember that Cicero too, in De republica (1.69, 2.57), had made a ‘mixed and moderate constitution’ the basis of his ideal state—though it was a constitution based on the interaction of three principles (potestas, auctoritas, libertas) present in a single united ruling class, and not, as in Polybius, on the equilibrium of three juxtaposed powers (consuls, Senate and people).31 Aristides, in speaking of a κρAσις Yπασ.ν τ.ν πολιτει.ν, seems almost closer to a Ciceronian view (though his reference to Polybius is beyond doubt), not least because To Rome makes it obvious that the Polybian principle of reciprocal control and equilibrium ‘has been replaced by a hierarchical system’,32 which is a unified system because it is headed by the emperor, the person ‘thanks to whom the people are able to obtain what they desire and the few are able to govern and wield power’. The passages of To Rome examined so far show that Aristides, though he never cites Polybius explicitly, knew and used the Greek historian’s work; but also that he had made his own the essential arguments that had been worked up in both the Latin and Greek worlds in defence of the Roman Empire. The appropriation of these themes in To Rome can be understood as a response to the doubts raised by Polybius in

29

But at the end of the passage Aristides mentions not the Senate but the ‘few’: the use of the term Pλ!γοι, though it may rather oddly evoke one of the ‘degenerate’ regime forms, oligarchy, nonetheless makes it possible to interpret the aristocratic element in the Aristidean mixed constitution in a wider sense, by identifying it with the governing class of the whole empire, already defined in sect. 59 of To Rome as the χαρι στερν τε κα0 γενναιτερον κα0 δυνατ,τερον element. 30 ‘La citazione ‘sintattica’ del testo […] sta forse ad indicare […] una continuità di rapporti tra Roma e gli esponenti delle classi dirigenti del mondo greco; un filo che lega Polibio, storico greco vissuto all’epoca degli Scipioni, ad Elio Aristide, originario della Misia nell’età degli Antonini’: Carsana 1990, 74–75. 31 Cf. Ferrary 1984. 32 Carsana 1990, 78.

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the so-called second introduction to his history; but Aristides’ answer to Polybius seems even more explicit in the sections of To Rome that immediately follow the comparison with the hegemonies of the Greek city-states (sects. 58–70). Here, first of all, he identifies in the diffusion of Roman citizenship the characteristic ‘that more than any other deserves to be noticed and admired, because there is nothing like it in the world’ (sect. 59). Being great, you have created a great city, but you have not given yourself airs about this and you have made it wonderful not by excluding people from it, but rather you have sought out a population worthy of it. You have made ‘Roman’ the name not of a single city but of a whole nation, and not just of a single nation but of a nation that is a match for all the others together. For you no longer divide the nations into Greeks and barbarians, and indeed you have demonstrated the absurdity of that distinction—for your city by itself is more populous than the whole tribe of the Greeks. You have instead divided humankind into Romans and non-Romans, so far have you extended the name of the capital city (sect. 63).

Hence No envy (φ&ονς) enters into your empire: you in fact were the first people to rise above jealousy, having made all things generally available and having conceded to all who are capable of it the chance of taking their turn in command as well as being commanded. Not even those who are excluded from positions of power nurture resentment (μσος). Given that there is a single system of government shared by all, as if this were a single city-state, it is natural that those who hold office treat people not as foreigners but as fellow-citizens, and under your government even the mass of the population feels safe from those who hold power among them… For your rage and vengeance (Pργ τε κα0 τιμωρ!α) immediately catch up with them if they dare to upset the established order. Thus it is natural that the present state of affairs pleases and suits (κα0 ρ σκει κα0 συμφ ρει) both the poor and the rich and no other way of life any longer exists. There has emerged a single harmonious system of government (μ!α Yρμον!α πολιτε!ας) that includes all … (sects. 65–66).

These sections obviously balance sections 44–46, where Aristides emphasizes the hatred that the various hegemonic Greek city-states aroused against themselves.33 The terms employed by Aristides to describe disaffection towards the rulers (φ&ονς and μσος) are used by

33 One recalls that not being capable of extending their citizenship to other peoples is given as the reason for the ruin of the Greeks by Dionysius of Halicarnassus (2.17.2)

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Polybius (6.7.8) to refer to the disaffection that arises when the ruling power ceases to pay attention to the interests of its subjects and thinks only of its own profits, which leads to the degeneration of monarchy into tyranny, which in turn leads to attempts to overthrow it: ‘thus they provoked envy (φ&ονς) and hostility, then hatred (μσος) and violent anger (Pργ), until monarchy gave way to tyranny’. There is no such disaffection towards the Romans, according to Aristides. While rage, Pργ, refers in Polybius to the rage of the subjects towards tendentially tyrannical power, and in Aristides too targets those who abuse their power, it is not in the latter writer expressed by the subjects but by the central Roman power itself, which directs it towards those who ‘dare to overturn the established order’.34 So great is the convenience of the Roman Empire for the subject peoples that they all stay close to you, and no more think of parting from you than ship-passengers think of parting from their helmsman. Just as bats in caves cling to each other and to the rock, so all of them are attached to you and fearfully take care that no one falls down from the clinging mass: they are more likely to fear being abandoned by you than to think of abandoning you themselves (sect. 68).

Finally, thanks to the Romans, peace reigns throughout the oikoumene: Peoples no longer struggle for empire and supremacy (ρχ7ς τε κα0 πρωτε!ων), because of which all previous wars have been engaged. Some people, like quietly running water, live voluntarily in peace, pleased to have put an end to troubles and misadventures, and aware of the fact that they had fought to no purpose against shadows. Others do not even know that once they had an empire—they have forgotten the fact: just as

and also by Claudius (at least in the account that Tacitus provides of his famous speech on the extension of the ius honorum to the notables of Gallia Comata: Ann. 11.24.4). 34 The end of sect. 66 of To Rome (κα0 γ γονε μ!α Yρμον!α πολιτε!ας :παντας συγκεκλεικυα) is verbally reminiscent of Polyb. 6.18.1, where, à propos of the mutual relationships that exist between the various elements in the Roman political system (consuls, Senate, people), the historian speaks of Yρμον!α: τοιατης δ’ οNσης τ7ς \κKστου τ.ν μερ.ν δυνKμεως εOς τ8 κα0 βλKπτειν κα0 συνεργεν λλλοις, πρ8ς πKσας συμβα!νει τ ς περιστKσεις δεντως *χειν τ"ν Yρμογ"ν α%τ.ν, Sστε μ" οLν τ’ εBναι τατης εXρεν με!νω πολιτε!ας σστασιν: cf. Volpe 2001, 308. A final ‘Polybian citation’ is perhaps detectable in sect. 103 of To Rome: ‘once you arrived… laws appeared, and people began to put trust in the altars of the gods’ (&ε.ν βωμο0 π!στιν *λαβον)’. Here Aristides may have had in mind Polyb. 6.56, where δεισιδαιμον!α towards the gods and the π!στις afforded to oaths are recognized as strong points in Roman society: so Oliver 1953, 948, and R. Klein in his edition, 118 n. 138.

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in Er the Pamphylian’s myth, or at least Plato’s, the city-states that were already on their own funerary pyre as a result of their mutual rivalries and struggles came back to life in a moment as soon as they all accepted your hegemony. They cannot say how they reached this state, and they can do nothing but marvel at it. They feel like a man who was dreaming a moment ago and suddenly wakes up to find himself immersed in a new reality (sect. 69).

Just this eulogy of peace, contrasted with the lives lived by the various peoples before the advent of Rome, allows us to understand better another aspect of Aristides’ response to Polybius’ problem about the Roman Empire. It is obvious that when he refers to those peoples that had fought ‘for empire and supremacy’ Aristides intends to refer in the first place to the ones whose histories he has sketched in the opening sections of his encomium, that is the Persians, Macedonians and Greeks.35 But the Romans too were well aware (as can be seen in the pages of Cicero) that they too, from at least the time of the Second Punic War, had fought wars de imperio.36 How the Romans of that time saw their wars is a matter of some controversy. Cicero later on took a moralistic stand, asserting (probably in the footsteps of Panaetius)37 that ‘wars are only to be undertaken in order to assure peace without injustice’ (De off. 1.35). Cicero seems not to have been able to make up his own mind about what constituted iustae causae for war.38 In To Rome, however, all this problematic is absent: what matters is the present, a world hegemony in which, theoretically at least, peace reigns (sects. 69–71). How this situation had been arrived at, one cannot (as Aristides remarks) say, or one would prefer not to, and hence the wars de imperio only seem to concern the past of other peoples and not that of the Romans. To everyone, and above all to the Greeks, the Romans brought peace.39 Demosthenes too (On the Crown 18.66) describes Athens as ε0 περ0 πρωτε!ων κα0 τιμ7ς κα0 δξης γωνιζομ νην, and sees Philip as initiating war Xπ4ρ ρχ7ς κα0 δυναστε!ας. 35

See for instance Cic. De off. 1.38, with Brunt 1978, 159–191. Cf. Gabba 1990, 194. 38 Cf. Harris 1979, 165–175, Brunt 1978, 177, Ferrary 1988, 410–415. 39 The idea that the Romans have brought peace to peoples who have shown themselves to be incapable of attaining and preserving it by themselves is already to be found in the letter of Cicero to his brother in which he observes, with regard to the province Asia, that ‘nullam ab se neque belli externi neque domesticarum discordiarum calamitatem afuturam fuisse, si hoc imperio non teneretur’ (Ad Q. fr. 1.1.34). Tacitus likewise makes Petilius Cerialis say in his speech to the Treviri and the Lingones that 36 37

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Aristides, having sketched in the preceding sections the unsuccessful history of the Greek hegemonies, thus demonstrates how Rome’s rise to power was in a sense a fulfillment of the objectives that the Greeks themselves had pursued but had not succeeded in achieving. ‘It fell to the political dominion of the Romans to bring about that consortium of cities united by a shared consensus to master city—the only possible way of unifying the Greek world’.40 Aristides’ attention is centred on a present in which Greece enjoys the fruits of Roman rule and on a past that could be said to have fully justified that rule. There is complete silence on the other hand about what stood chronologically between the two periods in question—Rome’s conquest of the Greek world, during which Rome combined acts such as the proclamation of the freedom of Greece by Flamininus in 196 with acts of brutal imperialism such as the destruction of Corinth in 146. The silence in which Aristides covered the history of the Hellenistic period is of course to be connected with the archaizing and classicizing elements in the style, citations and often in the subject matter of the authors of the Second Sophistic.41 But another consideration will have played an even bigger role—that it was better not to bring up now a period that was one of the most problematic, from an ‘ethical’ point of view, in the history of Rome. Polybius reserved judgement on that period, at least in public, but extended his history to the last of the Macedonian Wars and to the Achaean War, that is to say to the time when ‘the common misfortune of all Greece had its beginning and its end’ (3.5.6). Aristides prefers not to speak about these events. The reader may wonder whether this silence about Rome’s methods of conquests indicates not so much approval of Roman hegemony however it was achieved but rather, as Pernot argues elsewhere in this volume, tacit resignation in the face of a power that it seemed no longer possible to question. ‘terram vestram ceterorumque Gallorum ingressi sunt duces imperatoresque Romani nulla cupidine, sed maioribus vestris invocantibus quos discordiae usque ad exitium fatigabant’ (Hist. 4.74.2). 40 Desideri 2002, 149. 41 Cf. Bowie 1970. Though this tendency definitely has the effect of reminding the hearer of the glorious literary-historical past of Hellas, the interpretation of this allusion as an intentional challenge to Roman rule should not be generalized. In fact, ‘by recreating the situations of the past the contrast between the immense prosperity and the distressing dependence of the contemporary Greek world was dulled’ (Bowie 1970, 41), and ‘since Greek identity could not be grounded in the real political world, it had to assert itself in the cultural domain and so as loudly as possible’ (Swain 1996, 89).

chapter eleven AELIUS ARISTIDES AND RHODES: CONCORD AND CONSOLATION

Carlo Franco

Introduction The prosperous civic life of the Greek East under Roman rule may be seen as the most complete development of Greek civilization in antiquity. In this context the so-called Second Sophistic played a crucial role, and its cultural, social and political dimensions continue to attract the attention of contemporary scholars.1 Beyond its literary interest, the rich and brilliant virtuoso prose of the Greek sophists, together with the evidence of coins, inscriptions, and archaeology, provides historians with invaluable material for the study of civic life. The connections between higher education and social power, rhetoric and politics, central and local power, rulers and subjects, are becoming more and more evident. On the surface, the subjects approached by the orators were escapist (although perhaps no more escapist than a conference of classical scholars today), but on many occasions the sophists’ speeches were closely connected to the time and place of their delivery, thereby opening the door to historical analysis. In this context, Aelius Aristides rightly ranks among the most interesting and intriguing personalities: apart from the fascinating Sacred Tales and the solemn Encomium To Rome, other writings of his appear worthy of careful study. Having examined the Smyrnean Orations elsewhere, I will focus in this paper on two speeches about the ancient city of Rhodes that are included in the Aristidean corpus.2 They are good case studies for examining the impact of natural disasters on the Greek

Anderson 1989; id. 1993; Whitmarsh 2005. These texts ‘can only be understood when read in conjunction with other speeches in praise of cities’ (Bowersock 1969, 16). 1 2

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cities in the Roman Empire, as well as the social tensions that these disasters revealed. The size and beauty of those poleis were sometimes darkened and challenged by serious crises. But it was precisely in such emergencies that the educated discourse of the orators played a pivotal role. Leaving aside the momentous problem of the sophists’ political efficacy, we may claim that their speeches met above all the emotional needs of the cities: lamenting the disaster and preaching moral values, the orators tried to restore mutual confidence and concord, thereby preserving the deepest values of ancient civic life.3

The Rhodiakos In modern critical editions of Aristides’ works, the sequence of the two Rhodian speeches reverses their chronology: Oration 24, To the Rhodians on Concord, was apparently delivered more or less five years after Oration 25, the Rhodiakos. In order to examine those texts from a historical point-of-view, it is expedient to observe their proper chronological order by considering the Rhodiakos first.4 Oration 25 was delivered in Rhodes some time after a tremendous earthquake, which razed the city in 142 AD. It is at once a commemoration of the ruined city, a memorial of the catastrophe, and an exhortation to the survivors.5 After an exordium, which laments the total loss of Rhodes’ former greatness and beauty (Or. 25.1–10), there is a heartfelt exhortation to endure the disaster (11–16). The earthquake and its effects are vividly described in the central section of the speech (17–33), which goes on to reassess the importance of Rhodes and the duty of endurance (34–49). The oration then turns to a consolation, with an empathetic narration of the most ancient traditions of Rhodes and a forecast of the reconstruction (50–56). After a series of historical examples (57–68), it ends with the appropriate peroration (69). In his 1898 edition of Aristides’ works, Bruno Keil asserted, primarily on stylistic grounds, that the speech was not written by Aristides.

Leopold 1986, 818. The speech has been often disregarded because of its similarity with Oration 23: according to Reardon, ‘Il n’y a aucunement lieu d’analyser le discours Aux Rhodiens’ (1971, 134). The Rhodiakos is not considered at all, following Boulanger 1923, 126 n. 14. 5 Chronology: Behr 1981, 371; Guidoboni 1994, 235–236. Local context: Papachristodoulou 1994, 143 f. 3 4

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Keil’s judgment, accepted until recently,6 has heavily conditioned the critical evaluation of the text: the speech has generally been considered a spurious and tasteless piece, deprived of literary, not to say historical, value.7 It may be useful to remember that, before Keil, important scholars like Dindorf and Schmid judged the Rhodiakos perfectly appropriate to the style of Aristides.8 Recent studies have reconsidered the question and shown that Keil’s condemnation was too hasty and probably wrong. The bulk of the evidence adduced against an attribution of the text to Aristides was discussed and rejected by Jones.9 Upon careful scrutiny, no element of content and language was seen to conflict explicitly with the authorship of Aristides.10 Nor do small factual discrepancies with other Aristidean works support the attribution to a different author.11 Consistency was not the mark of the genre. It was the special occasion, the kairos, that dictated the choice of material to the orator, even in historical narratives: ad tempus orator retractat sententiam, as was wisely observed.12 If we were to adopt consistency as a criterion

Anderson 2007, 341–342. Keil 1898, 72, 91. As unauthentic, the Rhodiakos receives only a short mention in Boulanger (1923, 374 n. 1). General introduction: Behr 1981, 371 (with analysis of the structure); Cortés Copete 1997, 175–178. For a different hypothesis, namely that the extant Rhodiakos is spurious and that the original Rhodian speech was delivered in Egypt and subsequently lost, see Behr 1968, 16 and n. 48. 8 Aristides’ style was perfectly consistent with the Atticist mode. According to the careful analysis in Schmid 1889, vol. II, the Rhodiakos shows no remarkable difference from the other texts of the Aristidean corpus (Jones 1990). Norden (1909, 420–421) found the Smyrnean Monody and the Eleusinian speech divergent from the ‘normal’ Aristidean style. 9 Jones 1990. The highly mannered use of topoi is studied by Pernot 1993a, II, index s.v.; Cortés 1995; Cortés Copete 1995, 29 ff. 10 Much was made of the allocution to the daimones (Or. 25.33). This seems allowed by Men. Rhet 2.435.9–11: see Puiggali 1985, quoting in a note not only Or. 25.33, but also Or. 37.25, Or. 42, and Or. 46.32. 11 According to the author of the Rhodiakos, the members of the democratic group that recaptured Athens in 403 BC were seventy in number (Or. 25.64, as in Plut. Glor. Ath. 345D; see Xen. Hell. 2.4.2, Diod. 14.32), whereas Aristides (Or. 1.254) says that they were ‘little more than fifty’ (sixty, according to Paus. 1.29.3). The contradiction is of slight import and should not be used as a proof against the Aristidean authorship of the Rhodiakos. A rhetor was not bound to consistency in the evocation of ancient deeds. On the treatment of the events of 404/3 BC by the authors of the Second Sophistic: Oudot 2003. 12 In the Smyrnean Orations Aristides gives three different accounts of the origins of that city, choosing between several traditions according to the circumstances and the different aims of his speeches: Franco 2005, 425 ff. 6 7

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for judging a speech’s authenticity, the study of these texts would face a mountain of contradictions.13 The strongest argument against the authenticity of Oration 25 is based on a debatable argumentum e silentio: in the speech To the Rhodians, On Concord, Aristides does not refer to any prior declamation given on the island, despite the fact that he refers to his actions on behalf of the city, as well as to some prior visit paid to Rhodes (Or. 24.3, 53, 56). Moreover, he says that he is addressing the Rhodians tên prôtên. The meaning of these words has been much discussed: should we understand ‘for the first time’, as the more common usage suggests, or ‘for the present’? Whichever interpretation is chosen, the expression seems compatible with the attribution of the Rhodiakos to Aristides. But if this is the case, why did he fail to quote his previous speech about the earthquake? Here, too, various answers, which have underlined the difference between oral performance and written texts and between public and private declamations, have been given. There may be a more compelling explanation. When he was in Egypt, Aristides met the Rhodian ambassadors who were seeking help after the disaster (Or. 24.3). Five years later, in the same way, Rhodian delegates again came to meet him, presumably in Pergamum this time, and requested help for their city in the name of prior relations: the meeting in Egypt, but not the form of the aid given, is duly recalled. The oration On Concord is remarkably reticent about many themes, so the silence about Aristides’ previous involvement with Rhodes may be not so relevant and should be considered in a wider context. The speech is fully oriented towards the present situation of Rhodes; the earthquake is briefly alluded to only at the beginning and at the end of the text, as though it had been forgotten and completely obliterated by the rapid renaissance of the city. I will discuss at greater length later what the real motive for these choices may have been. The same attitude appears in the Aristides’ Panegyricus to Cyzicus, where the very reason for the reconstruction of the temple, viz. an earthquake, receives no mention at all. This attitude may explain the omission in the Concord oration: Rhodes faced a new crisis, that is, stasis, and needed encouragement. So it might have seemed inappropriate to recall the earlier disaster. 13 In Or. 33.29, for example, Aristides criticizes the ‘cursed’ sophists because they ‘persuade you that even Homer’s greatest quality was that he was the son of the Meles’, which is precisely one of the greatest sources of civic pride prized by Aristides in the Smyrnean Orations (Or. 17.14 ff.; Or. 21.8).

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In addition to relevant similarities to the oration On Concord, which might eventually outnumber the alleged discrepancies, the Rhodiakos shares many themes, like the beauty or sea power of Rhodes, as well as several stylistic echoes, with other works. All of these similarities led a specialist like Keil to express the bizarre hypothesis that Aristides himself imitated the Rhodiakos (allegedly the work of a different author) in his Smyrnean orations. It is high time to abandon such a theory, since neither the analysis of content, nor that of style, provides irrefutable evidence against the authenticity of the Rhodiakos.14 Indeed, the debate on its disputed authorship is showing signs of reaching a generally accepted conclusion. The diction of the Rhodiakos is compatible with Aristidean authorship, and authorship of the Rhodiakos is also consistent with Aristides’ biography. In the description of the earthquake, the author of the speech compares the rumble of the collapsing buildings with the noise produced by the Egyptian cataracts (Or. 25.25): this may be a fresh memory, for, in fact, when he went to Egypt, Aristides saw the cataracts, a customary detour for tourists on the Nile.15 Thus, the Rhodiakos could plausibly have been delivered during the journey back from Alexandria to Asia.16 To sum up, I will assume that the speech was written by Aristides. But in order to avoid bias in the analysis of the text, I will for the time being maintain a neutral designation and speak of ‘the author of the Rhodiakos’. The first theme worth consideration in the text is the description of Rhodes, which obviously refers to the days before its destruction. At the beginning of the speech, the orator recalls the ‘many great harbours’, the ‘many handsome docks’, the triremes and the bronze beaks ‘along with many other glorious spoils of war’, the temples and the statues, the bronzes and the paintings, the Acropolis ‘full of fields and groves’, and above all ‘the circuit of the walls and the height and beauty of the interspersed towers’. Up until the day of the earthquake, he says, the ancient renown of Rhodes had remained largely intact: although the glory of past sea battles was irremediably lost, ‘all the rest of the city was preserved purely pure’.17 All this material follows the familiar 14 Linguistic and philological analysis does not always definitively confirm or reject the debated authorship of ancient texts: see as a case-study the ‘Tacitean fragment’ created and discussed by Syme 1991b. 15 Arist. Or. 36 passim; Philostr. VAp 6.26. 16 Cortés 1995, 207. 17 Or. 25.1–8. All translations of Aristides are from Behr 1981.

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pattern of the laudes urbium and reveals a high level of rhetorical artistry: its function is to prepare us for the subsequent reversal of destiny and the total destruction of all the city’s treasures, statues and monuments. Although largely conditioned by rhetoric, the description is not a mere literary essay. The task of an orator in front of a civic community was to choose relevant aspects of the local reality and to reshape them, creating an idealized image of the city, not a false one.18 Thus it is possible to compare aspects of the speech with the actual city, so far as it is known from literary and archaeological evidence. Let us first consider the naval structures. At the beginning of the Imperial Age, the glory of ancient Rhodian sea power was still considered among the greatest and best-preserved sources of Rhodian pride.19 The time of its thalassocracy, however, was over. After the great battles of the Hellenistic age, the Rhodian navy had been marginalized by the increasing, and eventually prevailing, role of Rome. During the last century of the Republic, the Rhodians were still fighting against the pirates and collaborating with Caesar.20 But after heavy depredations at the time of the siege by Cassius in 43 BC, the size and strength of the Rhodian navy had been reduced to insignificance. Only commercial exchange and the local patrolling of the islands still under Rhodian rule continued.21 So the author’s reference to triremes, ‘some ready for sailing, others in dry dock, as it were in storage, but if one wished to launch and sail any of them, it was possible’ (Or. 25.4), seems an elegant way to describe the present state of the Rhodian navy: the docks and the huge triremes are preserved, but not all of them are actually in use. The author of the Rhodiakos is fully aware of this situation, since he praises this state of affairs as unique to Rhodes among the Greek cities: ‘only when one was with you, did he see precisely, not only hear, what the city was’ (2). Thus, the orator can transform the remains of the sea power into a justification for eulogy: for Rhodes has ‘sensibly

18 This attitude allows us to undertake a historical analysis of these speeches, as in the case of Dio’s speeches for Tarsus or Nicomedia, or Aristides’ for Smyrna: Classen 1980; Bouffartigue 1996. 19 Strabo 14.2.5 reports that the ‘roadsteads had been hidden and forbidden to the people for a long time’, in order to preserve its secrets, as in the Venetian Arsenal: Gabrielsen 1997, 37 ff. 20 Pirates: Flor. 1.41.8; Caes. BC 3.102.7; Cic. Fam. 12.4.3. Alexandria: BAl 1.1, 11.1–3, 13.5, 14.1, 15, 25.3–6, App. Civ. 2.89. 21 But see Cic. Fam. 12.15.2 (Lentulus): Rhodiosque navis complures instructas et paratas in aqua. Rhodes and commercial routes in the Imperial Age: Rougé 1966, 132 f.

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given up its empire’, without losing any of its structures or its name (8) and without diminishing the greatness of its ancestors.22 Archaeological excavations have revealed significant traces of the dockyards beneath later Roman structures;23 it is tempting to suppose that they were abandoned after the earthquake. Surely, no one could possibly have forecast at the time of the speech that the Rhodian navy would recover something of its former glory when in the third century AD the seas became less safe. A decree possibly dating to the beginning of the third century AD honours an Ailios Alexander, who patrolled the area of the Rhodian Chersonese and ‘provided safety and security for sailors, seizing and handing over for punishment the piratical band active at sea’.24 The memories of this great past provided the Rhodians with considerable moral strength. As a witness to the fierce character of the citizens in the face of extremely serious situations, the author of the Rhodiakos quotes an old local saying: Καιρ8ς δ4 νν ε$περ ποτ4, { νδρες =Ρδιοι, σ.σαι μ4ν XμAς α%το?ς κ τ.ν περιεστηκτων, βοη&7σαι δ4 τF. γ νει τ7ς νσου, στ7ναι δ4 πρ8ς τ"ν τχην λαμπρ.ς, ν&υμη& ντας Xμ.ν τ8ν το πολ!του κυβερντου λγον, ]ς *φη χειμαζομ νης α%τF. τ7ς νεcς κα0 καταδσεσ&αι προσδοκ.ν τοτο δ" τ8 &ρυλομενον, λλ’ { Ποτειδ ν, $σ&ι @τι Pρ& ν τ ν ναν καταδσωk (25.13).

Now is the time, O men of Rhodes, to save yourselves from these circumstances, to aid the race of the island, and to stand gloriously against fortune, keeping in mind the words of your fellow citizen, the helmsman, who, when his ship was tempest tossed and he expected that she would sink, made that famous remark: ‘Know well, Poseidon, that I will lose my ship on an even keel’.

Recourse to examples of ‘vulgarized philosophy’ was common enough in sophistic rhetoric, and especially in consolatory texts. The Rhodiakos also reveals a rich display of traditional wisdom, very apt for a popular assembly. Needless to say, the sailor’s phrase, which is widely attested in the classical writers, was particularly fitting for a Rhodian public.25 See also Dio Or. 31.103–104. Cante 1986–1987, 181 n. 10: ‘bacini di carenaggio, capannoni dei neoria, piani di alaggio’. 24 AE 1948, 201 = BullEp 1946–1947, 156; see De Souza 1999, 218–219. The brave man was also limênarchês. 25 Pernot 1993a, II, 603. Other occurrences of the saying were collected first by Haupt 1876, 319. A preliminary list ranks: Teles 62.2 Hense [= Stob. 34.991 Wachsmuth-Hense]; Enn. 508 Skutsch [dum clavum rectum teneam, navemque gubernem = Cic. QF 1.2.13]; Sen. Ep. 85.33 [‘Neptune, numquam hanc navem nisi rectam’]; Ep. 8.4 [aut saltem rectis, 22 23

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As a complement to the memories of past sea power, the author mentions the monuments which had borne witness, at least until the day of the earthquake, to Rhodes’ ancient strength: ‘bronze beaks’ and ‘many other glorious spoils of war’, some ‘taken from the Etruscans’ pirate fleet, some from the campaigns of Alexander, others from wherever each had been brought into the city’ (4). As is typical in the culture of the Second Sophistic, the memory of the past is limited to the Age of Alexander, and the approach is largely generic and selective. Rhodes had fought against the pirates already in the fourth century BC, before the Age of Alexander, and had won power and glory, but the author of the Rhodiakos does not mention this phase of Rhodian history.26 Actually the spoils exposed in Rhodes were not all the result of military operations, nor was the Rhodian attitude towards piracy unambiguous, since Rhodes had taken part, as has been recently argued, in a system of raids in the eastern Mediterranean.27 Other events in the local history enjoyed even greater renown. Of the sieges, for example, the author says, ‘and of old you showed to visitors the engines of war made from the shorn hair of your women, and it was a wonderful thing’ (κα0 πKλαι μ4ν τ κ τ.ν γυναικ.ν τ.ν ποκειραμ νων μηχανματα δε!κνυτε τος πιδημοσι κα0 &αυμαστ8ν _ν, Or. 25.32). Apparently female hair was commonly used for torsion

catapults in the Hellenistic and Roman epochs: Heron asserts that such hair is long, strong, and elastic—particularly suitable for military engines. After the great earthquake of 227 BC, King Seleucus II gave the Rhodians, among many other gifts, a large amount of hair. And a few years later, in 220 BC, the favor was returned by the Rhodians, who allegedly sent several tons of (female?) hair to Sinope as help against the attack by Mithridates.28 In the tradition of war stratagems, the use of female hair during sieges was seen as a sign of dramatic emergency and of a shortage of resources.29 Thus the machine is quoted as a brilliant aut semel ruere]; Prov. 1.4.5; Cons. Marc. 5.5; 6.3 [At ille vel in naufragio laudandus, quem obruit mare clavum tenentem et obnixum]; Quint. 2.17.24; Isid. Orig. 19.2. (both quoting Ennius); Plin. Epist. 9.26.4; Max. Tyr. Decl. 40.5e. 26 Diod. 20. 81.2–3; Strabo 14.2.5. See Gabrielsen 1997, 108 f.; Wiemer 2002, 117 ff. 27 Gabrielsen 1997, 176 n. 134; id. 2001. 28 Heron Belopoiika 30; Plb. 5.89.9; 4.56.3. The chronology is somewhere blurred: Walbank 1957–1979, I, pp. 511–512; 621 ad loc. In general see Marsden 1969, 87 ff. (and 75 n. 7: no evidence for women’s hair in Plb. 4.56.3). 29 Garlan 1974, 220, n. 3. See in general Vitr. 10.11.2: ad ballistas capillo maxime muliebri, vel nervo funes, and anecdotes about different cities, e.g. Strabo 17.3.15; Frontin. 1.7.3; Flor. 1.31.10; 2.15.10 (Carthage); Caes. BC 3.9.3 (Salona); Polyaen. 8.67 (Thasos); SHA

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symbol of heroic endurance that encompasses the whole civic body, from the soldiers to the women, and thus becomes an inspiring image for the Rhodians resisting the present catastrophe. The war engines dated presumably to the siege by Demetrius, more or less four centuries before, but all details are omitted in the speech: the orator uses the anecdote solely as a source of exhortation for the survivors. Some have suspected a play on words involving the shorn women in the past and Rhodes’ present condition, which is like that of a mourning lady.30 The opposition is between the past and the present: before the earthquake the Rhodians took pride in showing the war machines that had preserved their city; now the city itself appears destroyed. Nevertheless, there was chance in the misfortune, since ο% γ ρ πολ μFω ληφ&εσα Xμ.ν T πλις ο$χεται ο%δ’ νδρ.ν χε!ρων φανεσα, ο%δ’ *στησεν π’ α%τ7ς τρπαιον ο%δε0ς, ο%δ’ π8 τ.ν Xμετ ρων να&ημKτων τ παρ’ αXτF. τις Jερ κοσμσει, Sσπερ Xμες τος *ξω&εν λαφροις τ"ν Xμετ ραν α%τ.ν πλιν κατεκοσμσατε (Or. 25.59).

…your city did not perish captured in war, nor was it seen to be conquered by other men, nor did anyone triumph over it, nor will anyone adorn their temples with your offerings, as you have adorned your city with foreign spoils.

Thus, paradoxically, the orator may confidently judge the destruction of the city by earthquakes a reason to praise Rhodes, since the city ‘perished with a record of total invincibility’ (62), a claim that is surely false, but aptly conceals the defeat inflicted by Cassius. After praising the spoils and the memories of the past, the orator turns to Rhodes’ artistic ornamentation: τεμ νη δ4 &ε.ν κα0 Jερ κα0 γKλματα τοσατα μ4ν τ8 πλ7&ος, τηλικατα δ4 τ8 μ γε&ος, τοιατα δ4 τ8 κKλλος, Sστ’ ξια εBναι τ.ν λλων *ργων χαριστρια, κα0 )ς μ" εBναι διακρναι τ! τις α%τ.ν μAλλον &αυμKσειεν (Or.

25.5).31

There could be seen the precincts of the gods, temples and statues, of such number, size and beauty, that they were worthy thank offerings from all the rest of the world, and that it was impossible to decide which of them one would admire more. Maxim. 33.3 (Aquileia); Lact. Div.Inst. 1.20.27; Serv. ad Aen. 1.720; Veget. 4.9 (Rome, Gallic siege). The mention of Rhodes and Massilia in Frontin. 1.7.4 was apparently interpolated. 30 Dindorf 1829, I.809 n. 4, ad loc. Towers as the city’s hair: Eur. Hec. 910 f.; Troad. 784. 31 Apparently no mention of the Deigma: Plb. 5.88.8; Diod. 19.45.4.

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The praise of Rhodes’ artistic treasures was typical. Some celebrated paintings by Protogenes were said to have been spared by Demetrius and were later recorded by Strabo.32 Pliny the Elder, relying on the authority of Mucianus, stated that there were thousands of signa in Rhodes,33 although the famous oration by Dio Chrysostom informs the reader that, in his time, the Rhodians engaged in the dubious practice of recycling old statues for new honorands.34 The practise, albeit common elsewhere, was criticized by Dio.35 The author of the Rhodiakos, to be sure, does not mention this deplorable habit, but states that any one of the monuments that could be seen on the island ‘was a sufficient source of pride for another city’ (5).36 The speech then turns to the city walls, ‘a wonder […] which could not satiate the eye’ (7). This sort of praise also was very common in ancient descriptions of cities.37 According to Strabo, the Rhodian enceinte was among the most noteworthy structures of the island, and Dio Chrystostom assures us that the Rhodians took great care and spent a large amount of money in order to keep their walls wellmaintained (although they were reluctant to pay for new statues!). Pausanias ranked the Rhodian walls among the best fortifications he had seen: since his journeys are dated to the middle of the second century AD, this could mean that he saw them after their reconstruction.38 But an orator was not supposed to give technical or realistic details; rather, his task was to select relevant elements and convert them into perfect

Demetrius: Gell. 15.31.1; Strabo 14.2.5. NH 34.7.36. See also NH 33.12.55; 34.7.34, 63; 35.10, 69, 71, 93 for more information on Rhodian artistic treasures. 34 On the image of Rhodes in Dio Or. 31: Jones 1978, 26 ff. See Plb. 31.4.4 for the dedication of a Colossus to the Roman people in the precinct of Athena (Lindia?). Post-Hellenistic Rhodian statuary has not been the subject of intensive research: see Gualandi 1976, 18. Late Hellenistic casting-houses for large bronzes are studied in Kanzia and Zimmer 1998. Some monuments appear to have been restored after earthquakes: Papachristodoulou 1989, 186 n. 29b (dated to the first century AD for palaeographic reasons). 35 Recycling of statues at Athens: Paus. 1.18.3; Mycenae: Paus. 2.17.3, where criticism of the practice appears implicit in the text. As a sign of economic shortage: Sartre 1991, 138. 36 The same topos appears in Plin. 34.7.41–42 in reference to the Colossus and other large statues: sed ubicumque singuli fuissent, nobilitaturi locum. In the Rhodiakos, mention of the Colossus occurs at Or. 25.53. 37 Franco 2005, 391 ff. 38 Strabo 14.2.5; Dio Or. 31.125,146; Paus. 4.31.5, with Moggi and Osanna 2003, 493 (ad 8.43). 32 33

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forms of the topos. The Rhodiakos describes the towers, which could be seen from a distance when sailing to or from Rhodes and served as a sort of lighthouse.39 Enceintes had no real importance in a world completely pacified by Rome, but the Rhodian walls had a long history. They had played a role in a huge flood at the end of the fourth century BC, and later in the great siege by Demetrius Poliorcetes.40 Following those events, according to historical tradition and to the archaeological evidence, they had been restored after the earthquake in 227 BC (this phase is probably the one alluded to by Philo) and again after the Mithridatic wars.41 But such wars and troubles had no place in the eirenic discourse of the orators. Praise belongs to a peaceful city, where walls are no longer used and buildings fill the areas close to the enceinte (Or. 25.7), a situation exactly contrary to what ancient military engineers recommended for defence in the case of a siege.42 In comparison with other elements of the speech, the description of the city itself is rather hasty. The author takes note of the Acropolis, whose terraces have been identified in modern excavations,43 and the general appearance of the city, marked by the regularity of its buildings: ‘Nothing higher than anything else, but the construction ample and equal, so that it would seem to belong not to a city, but to a single house’ (ο%δ4ν 5τερον \τ ρου Xπερ χον, λλ διαρκ7 κα0 $σην τ"ν κατασκευ"ν ο`σαν, )ς γ νοιτ’ #ν ο% πλεως, λλ μιAς οOκ!ας, 6). The shape of the city was especially praised in antiquity, not only because of its regular grid but also because of its theatre-like structure, which Rhodes, among other cities, shared with Halikarnassos, although the resemblance between the city’s shape and a theatre belonged more to the city’s ideal image than to its real layout.44 In his description of the

39 On the topos see by contrast Arist. Or. 27.17 (after the building of the great temple, only Cyzicus does not need a lighthouse). 40 Flood in 316 BC: Diod. 19.45. On Demetrius’ siege see now Pimouget Pédarros 2003. 41 Diod. 20.100; Philo Byz. Bel. 84 f., 85; App. Mithr. 94; Kontis 1963; Konstantinopoulos 1967; Winter 1992, Philemonos-Tsopotou 1999. See the historical analysis in Pimouget Pédarros 2004. 42 See the prescriptions of Philo Byz. Bel. 80. This was actually attested by the archaeological excavations. 43 Kontis 1952, esp. 551 f.; Konstantinopoulos 1973, esp. 129–134. 44 Theatroeidês: Diod. 19.45.3, 20.83.2; Vitr. 2.8.11; Arist. Or. 25.6. Modern research in Kontis 1952; id. 1953; id. 1954; id. 1958; Wycherley 1976; Papachristodoulou 1994, id. 1996; Caliò and Interdonato 2005, esp. 91 ff. about Rhodes.

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city, the author considers only the elements pertaining to Hellenic culture (like the Rhodian fondness for paideia),45 but he does not record any ‘Roman’ element: this is hardly surprising, when we consider the attitude of intellectuals in the Second Sophistic. Thus, no mention is made of the many statues decreed (or reused) to honour Roman citizens, nor is there any mention of the imperial cult.46 The author is silent, too, about the gladiators, although this may reflect the actual situation: Louis Robert years ago remarked upon the peculiar absence of gladiatorial documents in Rhodes.47 In the Rhodiakos by Dio Chrysostom, the consistent preference for Hellenic practices is strongly contrasted with the excessive acceptance of Roman customs in Athens. Dio quotes a law from Rhodes that ‘forbade the executioner to enter the city’ (31.122).48 The author of the Rhodiakos may refer to the same law when he writes, ‘it was not even in keeping with your religion to pass a death sentence within the walls’. The allusion to the Rhodian law is debatable, however, since the orator is making a rather different point about the perverse impact of the earthquake, which transformed ‘the city which could not be entered by murderers’ into a ‘common grave for the inhabitants’ (Or. 25.28). It is easy to see that any orator appointed to praise Rhodes could walk a well-trodden path, a path amply supplied with literary and historical models; it would be even better if the author, as is the case here, was familiar with the place and the local traditions. The outlines for a eulogy of Rhodes were already established in Hellenistic times, as Polybius’ digression on the great earthquake of Rhodes in 228/7 BC makes clear.49 Relying on local sources, the historian lists in great detail the gifts received by the city from several kings, dynasts and cities after the disaster. He sings the praises of Rhodian freedom, opportunity, and conduct, following the classical scheme described by the rhetorical treatises (thesis, physis, epitêdeumata).50 In Polybius’ epoch, Rhodes was at the peak of its international power: the historian’s statements, or those of his sources, were the basis 45 Oratory and culture: Arist. Or. 25.67 (and Or. 24.6). Rhodian citizens praised for paideia: Blinkenberg 1941, 2.449 and 2.465 D (second century AD). Decay of Rhodian rhetoric in the Imperial Age: Puech 2002, 367–369. 46 Statues of emperors and Romans: Dio Or. 31.107–108, 115. 47 Robert 1940, 248. 48 Dio Or. 31.122, with Swain 2000, 44. 49 Plb. 5.89–90, with Walbank 1957–1979, I, 16–22; Holleaux 1968 [1923]. 50 On Polybius’ sources see now Lenfant 2005.

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for all subsequent praise.51 The tone of Strabo’s Rhodian section is similar to that of Polybius. Here again, contemporary elements and second-hand information are mixed together: =Η δ4 τ.ν =Ροδ!ων πλις κεται μ4ν π0 το \ω&ινο κρωτηρ!ου, λιμ σι δ4 κα0 -δος κα0 τε!χεσι κα0 τM7 λλMη κατασκευM7 τοσοτον διαφ ρει τ.ν λλων Sστ’ ο%κ *χομεν εOπεν \τ ραν λλ’ ο%δ4 πKρισον, μ τ! γε κρε!ττω τατης τ7ς πλεως (14.2.5).52

The city of the Rhodians lies on the eastern promontory of Rhodes and it is so far superior to all others in harbours and roads and walls and improvements in general, that I am unable to speak of any other city as equal to it, or even as almost equal to it, much less superior to it (trans. H.L. Jones).

Strabo praises above all the eunomia, the politeia, the care for naval affairs, and the city’s faithful conduct towards Rome, all of which resulted in Rhodes being granted the status of autonomy and receiving the large number of votive offerings that adorned the city. Especially celebrated are the provisions granted by the local government to the poor: the redistribution of wealth is considered an ‘ancestral custom’ (patrion ethos). The description of the city, stylized rather than based on autopsy, is nevertheless not remote from reality: some elements, such as the ‘Hippodamian’ plan or the harbours, have been confirmed by modern archaeological research.53 A brief historical outline also provides some useful hints. The Dorian origins of Rhodes are discussed in reference to Homer: here Strabo’s fondness for the poet joins with local tradition.54 The image of Rhodes put forth by later authors followed the same pattern. The loyal attitude displayed by the city during Mithridates’ siege won it wide celebrity and esteem.55 In the second century AD, Aulus Gellius quotes at length from Cato’s speech Pro Rhodiensibus, writing that ‘the city of the Rhodians is renowned because of the location

51 The local historians are likely to have played an important role in the formation of this literary image of Rhodes, but their works are irremediably lost to us: Wiemer 2001. 52 See Pédech 1971. 53 Harbours: Kontis 1953, esp. 279 n. 2. 54 The other poetic authority incorporated into the praise of Rhodes was Pindar. As we know from a scholion to the seventh Olympian, the text of the Ode was carved in golden letters in the temple of Athena Lindia: Gorgon, FGrH 515 F18. 55 App. Mithr. 24 ff.; Liv. perioch. 78; Vell. 2.18.3; Flor. 1.40.8. See Campanile 1996, 150 f.

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of the island, the beauty of its monuments, their skill in sailing the sea, and their naval victories’ (6.3.1), and repeats this praise in the context of an anecdote about Demetrius’ siege of the island (15.31.1). Apollonius of Tyana’s short visit to the island is also of interest: according to Philostratus, the holy man debated with Damis in the vicinity of the Colossus, engaged a talented flautist in conversation about his art, and rebuked both a rich and ignorant young man and an overweight boy fond of food. The island appears here in all its wellbeing and prosperity, although apparently Apollonius did not pay homage, not even from a critical perspective, to the beauty of Rhodes, as he did, for example, in Smyrna.56 The brilliant ekphrasis of Rhodes from the beginning of the Amores ascribed to Lucian is also worth attention. After his departure from Tarsus and his visit to the decayed cities of Lycia, on the way to Cnidus, the narrator arrives in Rhodes (6–10), where he admires the Temple of Dionysus, the porch, and the paintings; he does not see any sign of decline or crisis, nor does he mention the earthquake.57 The Amores are commonly believed to be a later composition.58 The authorship of Lucian has been denied because the text does not allude to the earthquake of 142 AD, among other reasons. But this silence does not imply a terminus ante quem. In Xenophon’s Ephesian Histories, which are dated toward the middle of the second century AD, there is a nice description of Rhodes that includes the crowded festivals of the Sun, the votive offerings, and the altar of the gods, without making any reference to the earthquake:59 the peculiar ‘atemporality’ of these texts, which show no interest in historical change, conditions the selection of local details. The earthquake of 142 AD suddenly destroyed this magical world: ‘The beauty of the harbours has gone, the fairest of crowns has fallen, the temples are barren of statues, and the altars, the streets and theatres are empty of men’ (Or. 25.9). The orator turns the description into the lamentation, exploiting the same classical topoi of the laus urbis, such as the origins of the city, but from a different point of view: if, according 56 VAp 5.21–23 and 4.7 for Smyrna. For the flautist’s name Kanos see SEG XXI 854b; Suet. Galba 12; Plut. Mor. 785B. See also the rebukes by the cithara-player Stratonicus in Plut. Mor. 525B. 57 The omission of the earthquake has been considered, perhaps erroneously, a relevant proof against Lucianic authorship. Aristides, too, in the speech On Concord, evokes the incomparable beauty of Rhodes without a hint of the recent disaster. 58 Jones 1984; Degani 1991, esp. 19. 59 Xen. Eph. 5.10–13.

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to the myth, Rhodes had emerged from the sea, now ‘the city has sunk beneath the earth and has gone from mankind’ (29). And if Zeus had ‘poured wealth’ and ‘rained down gold’ on the island, as Homer and Pindar had once sung, now ‘the god of fortune’ has poured on Rhodes very different gifts (30). The orator’s efforts are directly primarily to restraining the grief of the survivors and delivering a persuasive exhortation to them: their sufferings do not admit of any consolation, nonetheless, ‘they must be endured’ (34). He must prove that so terrible a catastrophe is bearable and that the Rhodians, because of their glorious past, must be confident that the city will flourish again. The skill in arguing in many different ways about a single subject was a sophistic heritage: the author of the Rhodiakos had only to follow the scheme of reversal. For as far as sophistic rhetoric is concerned, just as destiny transforms happiness into desperation, so misfortune will assuredly be transformed into a renewal of prosperity. Take Rhodes’ past, for example. When the Rhodians created the new city of Rhodes by unifying Lindos, Cameiros and Ialysos at the end of the fifth century BC, they did not choose an existing schema, but created a totally new one.60 Thus the reconstruction of the city after the earthquake ‘is much easier […] than the original foundation was’, because what is needed is ‘only to make a Rhodes from Rhodes, a new city from the old one’ (52–53). The argument about the monuments in the city, like the walls, is different. The earthquake has destroyed them, but their loss is bearable because, according to the old saying, ‘Not houses fairly roofed, nor the well-worked stones of walls, nor avenues and docks are the city, but men who are able to handle whatever circumstances confront them’ (ο%κ οOκ!αι καλ.ς στεγασμ ναι ο%δ4 λ!&οι τειχ.ν ε` δεδομημ νοι ο%δ4 στενωπο! τε κα0 νε,ρια T πλις, λλ’ νδρες χρ7σ&αι τος ε0 παροσι δυνKμενοι, 64). Thus, ‘even if your walls fell ten times, the dignity of the city will not fall, so long as one Rhodian is left’.61 All of the local traditions could be used by the orator to promote endurance and confidence—except, it would appear, the tradition of a negative omen that had oppressed the city from its very foundation.62 All the ancient sources are collected in Moggi 1976, 213–243. See also Or. 25.42. On the topos, which comes from Alcaeus fr. 112L–P and Thuc. 7.77.7, see Pernot 1993a, I, 195 ff. 62 Not considered in Blinkenberg 1913, who focuses above all on Homer and ancient legends. 60 61

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The author asserts that the earthquake has already fulfilled the oracle, so that one can hope that the reconstruction of the city may rest upon ‘more fortunate and better omens’ (69). The reference would have been perfectly plain to the audience, but it is less evident for us. One must turn to Pausanias. Speaking about Sikyon, he attributes the final decline of the city to an earthquake that ‘damaged also the Carian and Lycian towns, and shook above all the island of Rhodes, so that it was believed that the ancient prediction of the Sybil to Rhodes was accomplished’ (2.7.1). It is difficult to define the period alluded to by Pausanias, since the passage seems to be vague in its chronology. Elsewhere, Pausanias records the same earthquake, adding that it occurred under Antoninus.63 Thus, even if the identity of the events is not assured, one may assume that the oracle alluded to by Pausanias is the same as that mentioned in the Rhodiakos. The content of the prophecy is preserved, as it seems, in the so-called Oracula Sibyllina, among several others concerning earthquakes. The tone is obscure and allusive, and thus does not allow irrefutable identification, but the passage provides good elements for the analysis of the Rhodiakos. }Ω =Ρδε δειλα!η σ· σ4 γ ρ πρ,την, σ4 δακρσω·/ *σσMη δ4 πρ,τη πλεων, πρ,τη δ’ πολ σσMη,/ νδρ.ν μ4ν χρη, βιτου δ τε πKμπαν *δευκς*

(Orac. Syb. 7.1–3).

O poor Rhodes! I will mourn you as first. Thou shall be first among the cities, but also first in ruin, deprived of your men, totally *deprived* of life.

And again: κα0 σ, =Ρδος, πουλ?ν μ4ν δολωτος χρνον *σσMη,/ Tμερ!η &υγKτηρ, πουλ?ς δ τοι 'λβος 'πισ&εν/ *σσεται, ν πντFω δ’ 5ξεις κρKτος *ξοχον λλων (Orac. Syb. 3.444–448).64

And you, Rhodes, for a long time shall be free from slavery, O noble daughter, and great prosperity shall be upon you, and on the sea you shall reign over other peoples.

Similar oracles could refer to any big earthquake from 227 BC onwards, including the serious one of 142 AD. The Sibylline prophecies are a reminder of the symbolic and religious dimension of earthquakes in antiquity. Apart from the gods, however, there was also the political Paus. 2.7.1; 8.43.4. Orac. Syb. 4.101 = 8.160 may refer to the earthquake recorded in Paus. 2.7.1: see Geffcken 1902, ad loc. 63 64

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dimension of the event, such as the request for help and the problems of reconstruction. This was the task for the ambassadors, and required careful study: it is hardly surprising that natural catastrophes became a common subject in imperial and late antique literature. This subject was studied in the schools of rhetoric and appeared in the works of men of letters and historians.65 More than a century ago, Rudolf Herzog proposed the label of genos seismikon for this specific genre of speeches about earthquakes and suggested locating its origin in Rhodes.66 This kind of rhetoric was particularly linked to the life of the ancient city, and orators focused their attention especially on the cities. The collapse of buildings, the destruction of urban beauty, and the death of men and women struck the general imagination much more than the destiny of the rural areas did.67 This explains why in the Rhodiakos, after a sympathetic description of the earthquake, small islands around Rhodes receive only a short and dismissive mention: to the dismay of the cultivated, a great and beautiful city was in ruins, while unimportant places like Carpathus and Casus remained intact (Or. 25.31).68 But let us come to the earthquake itself. The author of the Rhodiakos was not in Rhodes when the disaster occurred. Thus the speech does not reflect any personal experience of the events, and the high dramatic style, the impressive list of ruins and casualties, and the heavy rhetorical expression are the substitutes for autopsy; this is the normal case in antiquity, with the possible exception of the letter of Pliny the Younger about the eruption of the Mount Vesuvius. At ‘that wretched noon hour’ says the orator, - δ4 qλιος τελευταα δ" ττε π λαμπε τ"ν \αυτο πλιν, κα0 παρ7ν ξα!φνης πKντα -μο τ δεινK. Xπανεχ,ρει μ4ν T &Kλαττα κα0 πAν ψιλοτο τ.ν λιμ νων τ8 ντ8ς, νερριπτοντο δ4 οOκ!αι κα0 μνματα νερργνυντο, πργοι δ4 πργοις ν πιπτον κα0 νε,σοικοι τριρεσι κα0 νεFc βωμος κα0 να&ματα γKλμασι κα0 νδρες νδρKσι, κα0 πργοι λιμ σι, κα0 πKντα λλλοις (Or. 25.20).

65 In the Progymnasmata by Aelius Theon, the seismos is listed among the themes for ekphraseis (118.18 Patillon-Bolognesi). 66 Herzog 1899, 141 ff. 67 Guidoboni 1994; Traina 1985, and now Williams 2006. Contempt for outlying areas: Arist. Or. 19.7–8. 68 This may explain also some inaccuracies about the administrative status of the islands in relationship to Rhodes: Fraser and Bean 1954, esp. 138 n. 1; Papachristodoulou 1989, 43 ff., Carusi 2003, esp. 219 ff.

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carlo franco The sun for the last time shone upon his city. And suddenly every terror was at hand at once. The sea drew back, and all the interior of the harbours was laid bare, and the houses were thrown upwards, and the tombs broken open, and the towers collapsed upon the harbours, and the storage sheds upon the triremes, and the temples upon the altars, and the offerings upon the statues, and men upon men, and everything upon one another.

The destiny of the population is a plurima mortis imago: κα0 οJ μ4ν τ ς \αυτ.ν φεγοντες οOκ!ας ν τας \τ ρων π,λλυντο, οJ δ’ ν τας \αυτ.ν Xπ’ κπλξεως μ νοντες, οJ δ4 κ& οντες γκαταλαμβανμενοι, οJ δ4 πολειφ& ντες Tμι&ν7τες, ο%κ *χοντες ξαναδναι ο%δ4 αXτο?ς <σασ&αι, κακ.ν πι&κην τ8ν λιμ8ν προσελKμβανον, κα0 τοσοτον κερδα!νοντες, @σον γν.ναι τ"ν πατρ!δα ο%κ ο`σαν, παπ,λλυντο. τ.ν δ4 δι κρινε τ σ,ματα T τχη, κα0 τ μ4ν Tμ!σεα ε$σω &υρ.ν πε!ληπτο, τ δ’ Tμ!τομα *ξω προNκειτο. κα0 τοτοις 5τερα α` προσεν πιπτε σ,ματα, σκεη, λ!&οι, @ τι \κKστFω φ ρων - σεισμ8ς ν μιξεν (Or. 25.22).

Some in fleeing from their houses perished in those of others, others transfixed by fear perished in their own, some overtaken while running out; others left behind half alive, unable to emerge or save themselves, starved in addition to their other miseries, and profiting only to the extent of knowing that their country did not exist, they perished. Others’ bodies were sundered by chance, half left within doors, half lay exposed without. And in addition other bodies fell upon them, and household implements, and stones, and whatever the earthquake carried off and tossed upon each.

Nor is the description of the aftermath much better: Tμ ραι δ4 κα0 νκτες πιλαμβKνουσαι το?ς μ4ν @σον μπνεν ζ.ντας ν φαινον τραυματ!ας τ.ν λοιπ.ν τος πλε!στοις, το?ς δ4 τελευτσαντας σεσηπτας, ο%δ’ -τιον *χοντας κριβ4ς τ.ν μελ.ν, λλ’ )ς \κKστου τι φελεν D προσ &ηκε τ8 πτ.μα (Or. 25.27).

The ensuing days and nights revealed those who were alive, at least who were breathing, to be wounded and those who had already died to be rotting, and without any limbs intact, but however the ruin had worked its amputations and its graftings on each.

This description is very different from the euphemistic and pathetic but reticent approach that a reader observes in other Aristidean writings, say, in the Smyrnean Monody. Some scholars have considered the entire description tasteless and abhorrent to the writer’s style.69 Their 69 Swain 1996, 294 n. 146, still rejects Aristides’ authorship, underlining the ‘gory details’.

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disappointment originates, perhaps, from a misunderstanding about the genre. The style of the Rhodiakos has been judged in comparison to the restrained grief of the Smyrnean Orations. In fact, it shares with the monodies some stylistic features such as parataxis, dramatic questions, repetitions, pathos, asyndeta, antitheseis, figures of speech ‘especially rapid and vigorous’ (gorgotera kai akmaiotera),70 but it goes beyond the measure and the restraint typical of the monodies.71 Thus there are abundant details about the catastrophe, which is described prolixe vehementerque.72 In fact, the Rhodiakos is not a pathetic lamentation, but a consolation.73 At Smyrna, Aristides pours tears onto the ruins of the city, then goes on to seek support from the emperor; he selects his topics according to his different aims, describing in great detail the damage suffered by the buildings, but speaking more cautiously about the dead citizens.74 In Rhodes, the commemoration of the catastrophe is focused rather on the survivors. Thus, much as in a funeral speech, the details are pertinent and would have been requested; the style could develop at length what Apsines called ‘graphic descriptions’ (hypographai).75 There was no obligation to temper dramatic elements in the narration or to conceal the worst aspects of the catastrophe; indeed, ‘these descriptions satisfied the victims’ need to feel that they were not neglected in their suffering and their fear’.76 A striking difference between the Rhodiakos and other Aristidean writings does exist: notwithstanding some echoes in the Monody for Smyrna, carefully noted by Keil,77 the search for parallels goes beyond the age of Aristides. Apart from some Latin examples,78 one may refer in particular to the impressive tsunami that occurred in 365 AD, which was described by Ammianus.79 More striking similarities are to be found

Apsines 10.48 Patillon. See Demoen 2001. Men. Rhet. 2.437. 72 As Dindorf noted (1829, III, xlv). 73 On the paramythêtikos logos see Men. Rhet. 2.413–414 (syngraphikos style). 74 Arist. Or. 18: see Franco 2005, 477. 75 Apsines 3.23 and 27 Patillon. To be sure, Apsines does not suggest noting every detail, in order to avoid excess: 10.31 Patillon. 76 Leopold 1986, 830. 77 Keil 1898, ad loc. 78 Sen. Ep. 91.13 (Lugdunum destroyed in one hour); NQ 6.1.8 (the earthquake annihilates great cities). 79 Amm. 26.10.15–19: Mare dispulsum retro fluctibus evolutis abscessit, ut retecta voragine profundorum species natantium multiformes limo cernerentur haerentes…, with Kelly 2004; on Amm. 17.7.9–14 (Nicomedia) see de Jonge 1977, ad loc. See also Smid 1970. 70 71

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in the oration composed by Libanius for the earthquake of Nicomedia in 358 AD. Intertextual analysis leads to the attractive hypothesis that the Rhodiakos itself was a model for Libanius: in both writers one finds the polyptoton evoking walls collapsing over other walls and an allocution to the Sun, who sees everything but did not prevent the disaster.80 Together with minor narrative details,81 these similarities might be an argument for the attribution of authorship of the Rhodiakos to Aristides, since the speech in Libanius’ epoch was probably included in the Aristidean corpus. The horrific evocation of the earthquake constitutes the negative side of the speech, which in the end tends towards consolation and exhortation. The past and the present of Rhodes become the basis for a rapid reconstruction: upon the sudden catastrophe a prosperous rebirth will follow. The Rhodians are happier than their ancestors, who ‘founded the city in times of war and unrest’ (Or. 25.54), since the present is ‘a time of much peace and deep calm, which has benefited and prospered the affairs of all mankind’ (55). Thus, they ‘should confidently expect that there will be many Greeks to assist the restoration’. Such was the glory of Rhodes and the gratitude towards its inhabitants, who ‘were the common hosts and friends of all and also the saviour of many’ (40), that everybody, when asked to give help, will ‘think that he gratifies himself rather than that it is a favour to them’ (43). Here is another line of argument: after the earthquake of 227 BC, according to Polybius (or rather, we may confidently assert, according to his source), the Rhodian ambassadors who were requesting aid for the city’s reconstruction behaved in such a wise and dignified manner that they were able to transform the disaster into an opportunity for the city.82 Such was the strength of the delegates’ request that those to whom it was addressed felt obliged to honour it, and it was not Rhodes that was indebted to the donors, but quite the opposite, since the recipient was so great. Similar arguments recur in other texts of the genos seismologikon, such as Aristides’ own Smyrnean Orations: beyond the rhetorical motiva80 Lib. Or. 61.14.9 ff. = Arist. Or. 25.20 (collapsing buildings); Or. 61.16 = Arist. Or. 25.31–32 (allocution to Helios). 81 Such as the time at which the catastrophe occurred, an element clearly derived from funeral orations and the equation between city and man. The Rhodiakos does not mention the fire. 82 Plb. 5.88. Dignity: nounechôs, pragmatikôs, semnôs, prostatikôs. Opportunity: mê blabês, diorthôseôs de mallon […] aition. Reversal: hôste mê monon lambanein epidoseis hyperballousas, alla kai charin prosopheilein autous tous didontas.

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tions, this attitude reveals a consistent and shared faith in the system of reciprocity, which regulated the relations between cities and the ruling power. On a higher level, the assistance of the gods, Sun and Neptune, is invoked. The invocation participates in a religious system of divine justice,83 but in the text there is no explicit theodicy: only the god of Fortune is held responsible for present sufferings, and all will revert to happiness in the future. Besides willing Hellenes and compassionate gods, there was another leading figure to invoke as a source of assistance: the emperor. Above all the Rhodians must have hope in a ruler ‘who should certainly decide apace to restore the city as much as he can, so that the fairest of his possessions may not lie upon the earth in dishonour’ (Fp μKλιστα χρ" δοκεν εBναι δι σπουδ7ς )ς #ν οLν τε M_ τ"ν πλιν ναλαβεν, )ς μ" τ8 κKλλιστον α%τF. τ.ν κτημKτων τ!μως π0 γ7ς κ οιτο, Or. 25.56). The dynamics of imperial subventions in the face of natural catastrophes have been repeatedly studied: the Rhodiakos fits by and large the typical patterns.84 Our information about the provisions granted to the island for its reconstruction comes first from Pausanias. In his detailed eulogy of the emperor Antoninus, he says that ‘when the Lycian and Carian cities, and Cos and Rhodes where shaken by a formidable earthquake, the emperor restored them too, with large gifts of money and great zeal’ (8.43.4).85 Actually, epigraphic evidence demonstrates that Antoninus was honoured in Rhodes as ktistês.86 His generosity towards the island was referred to as a model by Fronto when he pleaded in the Senate for the reconstruction of the Carthaginian forum.87 In Rhodes, imposing Roman architecture began to transform the shape of the city.88 Thus, the author of the Rhodiakos correctly forecast imperial aid. Like most of his Greek contemporaries, however, he did not take an interest in the broader dimension of the Empire. In this respect, at least, this intriguing speech is reassuringly similar to other texts of the time.

83 Theodicy in this text is ‘complexe et paradoxale’ (Pernot 1994, 363). On reciprocity: Lendon 1997, 82. 84 Waldherr 1997. 85 On the relationship between this passage and 4.31.5, see above. Some information about the provisions granted by Antoninus is given also in SHA Ant. 3.9.1: omnia mirifice instauravit. 86 Pugliese Carratelli 1940 = AE 1948, 199; BullEp 1946–1947 n. 156. 87 Fronto, Pro Carthaginiensibus, pp. 256–259 van den Hout2: Rhodum condidisti (257). 88 Tetrapylon: Cante 1986–1987 (late second – early third century AD).

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Oration 24, To the Rhodians, on Concord, was written in Smyrna between 147 and 149 AD.89 Because of his physical condition, Aristides did not deliver the speech personally, but rather sent the text to be read in Rhodes. His intervention had been requested: some Rhodian delegates had come to visit him to ask for his help in settling some internal troubles, and he had declared himself ready to intervene, being deeply involved in the city’s conditions as if it were ‘his own country’ (Or. 24.2–3). After an exordium that defines the author’s attitude towards Rhodes (1–3), the speech begins with a discussion about the good effects of concord and the evil consequences of faction (4–22). Then follows a section devoted to historical examples from the Greek past (23–27) and a moving eulogy of concord (41–44): this attitude is repeatedly declared to be best suited to the Rhodian temper and the city’s political traditions (45–57). An affecting peroration closes the speech (58–59).90 The object of the quarrels itself is alluded to in the text in a manner that is dramatic, but also quite general. This approach may be due to the situation of the author, who would have been less informed about local matters, as well as to his decision to euphemein, that is, to allude only cautiously and indirectly to the problem. Civic dissent was considered a serious and unpleasant subject, and therefore in need of a very prudent approach. γγελλομ νων δ μοι πολλF. δεινοτ ρων, εO οLν τε εOπεν, τ.ν νν, @τι πιστετε Xμν α%τος κα0 διMρησ&ε κα0 ταραχ ς ο% προσηκοσας Xμν ταρKττεσ&ε, οN&’ @πως χρ" πιστεειν οN&’ @πως πιστεν εBχον (Or. 24.3).

But when the present situation, which is much more terrible, if it is possible to say so, was reported to me, that you distrust one another, have taken sides, and are involved in disturbances unsuited to you, I did not know whether I should credit it, or disbelieve it.

The city was apparently split into factions, each of whom Aristides tries to placate in the speech.91 He speaks of ‘the envy felt by the poor for the rich’, of ‘the greed of the rich against the poor’ (32), and later of ‘those 89 The chronological span depends on the notorious problem of the proconsulate of Albus in Asia: see Behr 1968, 73–74; id. 1981, 368 n. 1 for the later date; for the earlier (July–October 147), Behr 1994, 1204. 90 Structure: Behr 1981, 369. 91 The honorific decree from Lesbos (IG XII 2,135; SEG 29, 1979, 741) might refer to the same crisis: Buraselis 2001, esp. 67 ff.

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who think that they should be superior’ and ‘those who are deficient either in property or in some other fortune’ (34). The quarrel probably had social and economic roots, which is why Aristides has recourse to the authoritative example of two ancient poets: Terpander, who settled civic unrest in Sparta (3), and Solon.92 The Athenian legislator ‘was most of all proud of the fact that he brought the people together with the rich, so that they might dwell in harmony in their city, neither side being stronger than was expedient for all’ (14). Beyond the cultivated reference to an ancient figure of Greek history, the example of Solon reveals the role that Aristides himself hoped (or pretended) to play in the matter. The argumentation follows a regular pattern. The undesirability of faction is a self-evident truth, needing no demonstration: within the city, the house, and the individual, discord makes clear its negative impact, involving evil, peril, and dishonour. In the same way, everybody must recognise the good of concord: thus the present attitude of the Rhodians, so unworthy of local traditions, is patently dangerous and absurd. The social unrest involved in the stasis threatened to subvert the traditional structures of power. This may explain why, in the midst of numerous exhortations and pathetic appeals, there is in the speech a particularly frank passage: νμος γKρ στιν οiτος φσει κε!μενος λη&.ς Xπ8 τ.ν κρειττνων καταδειχ&ε0ς, κοειν τ8ν qττω το κρε!ττονος. κν τις λευ&ερ!ας σμβολον ποι7ται τ8 διαφ&ε!ρειν τ8ν νμον, αXτ8ν ξαπατ>A (Or. 24.35).

There is a natural law, which has truly been promulgated by the gods, our superiors, that the inferior obey the superior. And if some one regards the corruption of law as a sign of liberty, he deceives himself.

Here, the topical reference to a ‘natural law’, while mitigating the strong and conservative political advice, does little to conceal the rhetor’s effort to protect the privileges of the higher ranks by means of a message of reconciliation and amnesty: ‘those who have suffered’ should not await the punishment of ‘those who have committed these wrongs’, since evil is not ‘the remedy for evil’, and ‘good things should be underlined by memory, and bad things crossed out by forgetfulness’.93 92 Terpander, testt. 14–15 (Gostoli). Aristides had recourse elsewhere to this poet: Or. 2.336; Or. 3.231, 242. On Solon see also Or. 25.29, 32, 40. 93 Arist. Or. 24.36, 40. See Behr 1981, 369–370 n. 21.

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Our information on Rhodian society in this period does not permit us to be more specific about the context and the nature of the crisis, although the decline of the coinage—there is no minting later than Commodus—might be considered evidence of the island’s economic decline.94 We may also link the troubles and the stasis, which challenged traditional forms of social appeasement, to the aftermath of the earthquake that had occurred some years before. Whatever relationship we may suppose between the Rhodiakos and On Concord, the cautious way in which the latter speech alludes to the earthquakes may be revealing.95 The memory of the earthquake is minimized: Aristides does not mention his prior intervention for Rhodes, nor does he develop a classical consolation argument, but keeps silent about the internal and external solidarity expressed on the occasion of the catastrophe.96 We are led to the conclusion that the rebirth after the earthquake had been very different from the happiness prophesied by the author of the Rhodiakos: if it is Aristides, it is evident that he decided to omit any mention of his previous actions towards the city, since the predictions of prosperity and recovery had been disproved by subsequent events, notwithstanding the efforts displayed by the emperor. As many critics have noted, the speech On Concord comprises a number of general thoughts, which recur in similar works by Dio Chrysostom and by Aristides himself and could fit any troubled situation.97 In fact, the text contains scant reference to the local situation and lacks an adequate context.98 Aristides was aware of these limits. At the very beginning of the text he anticipates all possible objections: qδιστα δ’ ν μοι δοκ. τοτ’ πιτιμη&7ναι, )ς ρχαα λ γων κα0 ο%δ’ -τιον καιν8ν εXρηκ,ς. π.ς γ ρ ο%κ τοπον τF. μ4ν λ γοντι μ μφεσ&αι )ς λ!αν γν,ριμα κα0 παλαι κα0 πAσι δοκοντα συμβουλεει, α%το?ς δ4 μ" τολμAν χρ7σ&αι τος ο[τω φανερος, λλ μ" μνον πρ8ς αXτο?ς στασιαστικ.ς *χειν, λλ κα0 παντ0 τF. μ χρι τοτου χρνFω διαφ ρεσ&αι; γc δ’ οNτε τ8ν σμβουλον οNτε το?ς χρωμ νους Tγομαι τοτο δεν σκοπεν, τ8ν μ4ν @πως 94 Kromann 1988; Ashton 1996. See in general Head 1897, esp. CXVI–VII, and RPC I (19982), 454–457; II (1999), 179–181; Suppl. I (1999), 33–34. 95 The present situation of Rhodes is considered ‘much more terrible, if it is possible to say so’ than ‘the misfortune of the earthquake’ (Or. 24.2), and in the peroration the citizens are requested to ‘desist from this earthquake’ (59). 96 Contrast Arist. Or. 19.12 and Or. 20.15–18: Franco 2005, 488 ff. 97 See now Heller 2006. 98 Leaving aside some minor discussions, the bulk of the analysis is to be found in Dindorf 1829, I, 824–844; Boulanger 1923, 374 ff.; Behr 1981, 371 f.; Pernot 1993a, I, 289 ff.

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ρε τατα e μηδε0ς, το?ς δ’ @πως κοσονται τα&’ e μ" πρτερον, λλ’ @ τι μ λλει κοιν7 συνο!σειν, τοτο κα0 λ γειν προαιρεσ&αι. ο%δ4 γ ρ ν τας το σ,ματος χρε!αις το&’ Tμ.ν 5καστος σποδακεν, @πως τι καιν8ν κοσεται, λλ’ οiτος ριστος Oατρ8ς @στις #ν Xγιες ποιεν π!στηται· ο%δ’ *σ&’ @στις Xμ.ν γανακτσει,  ν δι τ.ν α%τ.ν σω&7 δι’ pν τις Zδη κα0 πρτερον (Or. 24.5).99

I would most willingly, I think, be criticized because my arguments were old and I had found no new ideas. For is it not strange for you to blame the speaker because his advice is well-known, stale, and accepted by all, yet for you yourselves not to dare to make use of such obvious arguments, but not only to be facetiously disposed toward one another, but also to be at odds with your history up to now? I believe that neither an adviser nor those who employ him should give any consideration to the following, the one to how his remarks will be original, the others to how they will hear new material, but that they should prefer a speech on what will be expedient for all in common. In our bodily needs each of us has not sought to learn of some new treatment, but the best doctor is the one who knows how to make men well. No one of you will be annoyed if he is saved by the same means as someone has been before.

But the orator knew well how to turn this kind of ‘generic composition’ into a useful exhortation, carving the epideictic ‘langue’ into the ‘parole’ of an oration directed toward a specific audience. The choice of local themes was crucial. From the very beginning of the oration, the troubled status of Rhodes is contrasted with the tradition of long-lasting concord, so that present disturbances can be defined as ‘unsuited’ (3) to the city’s attitude. Ample use is made of examples from the Hellenic and Rhodian past. The vicissitudes of the Athenian and Spartan empires were an overused point of reference for On Concord speeches during the imperial period: many centuries before, the two cities had lost their hegemony because of endemic discord.100 In order to make these models more effective for his audience, the orator had only to underline a connection between them and Rhodes. The Athenians shared the Rhodians’ love for democracy and sea power,101 the Spartans were ‘fellow tribesmen’ See also Or. 24.41. The rhetor like a medical doctor: cf. Jones 1978, 74. See Arist. Or. 23.42 and in general Bowie 1974 [1970]; Schmitz 1999; Oudot 2003. 101 In the Rhodiakos, a brilliant connection is developed between the deeds of those major powers and the local traditions of Rhodes through the mention of Conon (65– 66). It was a troubled phase in local history when the Athenian admiral promoted an anti-Spartan rebellion in Rhodes in 395 BC: Diod. 14.79.5–7; HellOxy 15, with Barbieri 1955, 116 ff. Note especially Paus. 8.52, where Conon is included in a list of benefactors of Greece, obliterating his collaboration with the Persians. 99

100

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of the Rhodians, and the citizens of Argos their ‘ancestors’ (24 ff.).102 Each of the three cities had experienced the evils of faction: ‘Now it is fitting, O men of Rhodes, to believe that a common embassy has come from all these cities, urging you to reconciliation’ (28). The Dorian past conveys the more explicit caveat: the city, suffering from self-inflicted divisions, is compared to the Laconian Cleomenes ‘who chopped up his body, beginning with his feet’ (38): the remote source for the whole story is obviously Herodotus (6.75), but the reference to it in Pausanias (3.4.5) bears witness to its popularity in the second century AD. And the example of the Doric past is particularly fitting for an audience that is said to have preserved perfectly the qualities of its ancestors: the pure Doric temper was a symbol of manliness.103 That symbol is exploited by Dio Chrysostom in the Rhodiakos, as well as by Aristides, and not only in the Rhodian orations.104 The prevailing attitude to faction in Rhodes is presented as completely unsuited to the Dorian tradition, which the Rhodians have carefully preserved: ‘You are originally Dorians from the Peloponnese, and alone to this day have remained purely Greek’ (45), so that in the recent past it was impossible ‘to find any word among you which was not Dorian’ (57). How far do these aspects correspond to the actual situation in Rhodes? Pride in being ‘purely Hellenes’, as well as the preservation of the Doric temper, were topics of praise attributed to several cities.105 The concern for purely Greek names, too, was typical of the Greek East. Apollonius of Tyana was said to have rebuked the Smyrneans because of the diffusion of Roman names in the city, whereas Aristides could praise Smyrna for its care in the preservation of its Ionian character.106 On the other hand, the Dorian language was not universally appreciated. If Marcus from Byzantium was famous for the Doric flavour of his oratory, the Atticists considered this dialect rather rough.107 This opinion was shared by Tiberius: the emperor did not

102 On the links between Rhodes and Argos, which share the common ancestor Tlepolemos: ISE I 40; Thuc. 7.57.6; Pind. Ol. 7.36 ff. 103 Men. Rh. 1.354.19 f. (andrikôtatê); cf. 1.357.20 ff. on Dorian origins. 104 Dio Or. 31.18; Arist. Or. 38.13. where the author quotes ‘the rule of the sons of Asclepius’ as a source of Rhodian pride. 105 See Dio Or. 48.3 on the citizens of Prusa; Paus. 4.27.11 on the Messenians. 106 Philostr. VAp. 4.5 (Smyrna); Franco 2005, 402. 107 Marcus: Philostr. VS 1.24.529 (dorizontos); Swain 1996, 198 f.; Schmitz 1997, 69 ff., 176 ff.

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appreciate men who spoke Greek with a Dorian accent, since it was an unpleasant reminder of his long sojourn in Rhodes.108 For a Rhodian audience, needless to say, things were different. The renaissance of Greek literary dialects has been sometimes considered an artificial and literary phenomenon, largely surpassed by the diffusion of the koinê. Some Dorian elements in the language of Rhodian inscriptions in the Imperial Age may be a superficial phenomenon, but, in fact, Roman names became widespread on the island only at a late date. Along with other elements, this has been judged as a sign of resistance to Romanization. The loss of civic freedom in the early Imperial Age probably involved a softening of this proud attitude.109 But the author of the Rhodiakos goes so far as to proclaim that even ‘foreign residents’ in Rhodes spoke a pure Dorian dialect (Or. 24.57). As for the archaeological evidence, the ‘absence of permanent Roman settlement’ was interpreted years ago as proof that Rhodes was ‘largely uninfluenced’ by Rome because of a ‘lack of penetration of Roman civilization in depth’.110 If that is true, it is not the whole truth, for we have learned of some Rhodian citizens who were deeply interested in Roman politics; we know, too, of important Roman elements that penetrated the religious sphere of Rhodian life. The cult of Rome, for example, included a priest and a festival from the second century BC onward; the imperial cult, then, is already documented in the reign of Augustus.111 Thus the pure Doric temper was only one part of Rhodian identity, although the diminished visibility of the Roman element allowed the ancients (and sometimes the moderns) to minimize the influence of the ‘barbarians’. References to local culture were more beneficial and more suitable for the audience than remote events from Greek history, although the speech treats events from local history only in a selective and somewhat random way.112 The leading principle is not historical truth, 108 Perhaps his own pronunciation of Greek had been conditioned by his time on Rhodes: Suet. Tib. 56.1. 109 Linguistic analysis: Bubenik 1989, 94 ff.; historical analysis: Bresson 1996; id. 2002; Rhodian civic exclusiveness and conservatism: Jones 2003, 158. On bilingualism in general, see Adams 2003; Adams, Janse, and Swain 2002. 110 Fraser 1977, esp. 11, 74 f. 111 See Erskine 1991; ISE III 162 for the inscription in honour of Eupolemos. 112 In the Rhodiakos, the dominion of the sea was rightly abandoned as the new Roman power grew, but as far as the praise of the city is concerned, no clear distinction is made between the ancient glory and the contemporary inactivity. On different grounds, this is even clearer in Dio Or. 31.18–20, 161–162.

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but rather the kairos, that is, the search for what is expedient in a given situation. The theme of origins, for example, was particularly well-suited to preaching the good of concord.113 Since the Sun was the founder of their race, the propatôr and archegos tou genos, the Rhodians should ‘feel a sense of shame’ (Or. 24.50) on account of their improper attitude.114 All of the arguments that might support the traditional inclination of the Rhodians towards concord are carefully exploited:115 the solidarity of the ancestors when they unified the three communities of Lindos, Camiros and Ialysos and Homer’s references to Rhodes are quoted as the perfect counterbalance to the present state of division. How could the Rhodians ruin the renown they had won on the basis of their ancient spirit of concord? It was only on account of such concord that they had successfully fought against the Etruscans and the pirates, ruled the seas, adorned their city, and left ‘their descendants the right to be proud over these deeds’ (53). No detailed account is given, only a sequence of uninterrupted examples of military virtue. Difficult moments in local history are silenced, particularly those such as the siege by Cassius, which caused faction in the civic body, and times when an improper attitude was adopted towards Rome.116 The most explicit political point in the speech concerns the problem of democracy and freedom. As in many other orations delivered in the cities of the Greek East, exhortations to peace and concord in civic conduct aimed at deterring people from actions that would lead to the undesirable intervention of the Roman authorities.117 Rhodes was at the time a free city in the Roman Empire. Thus, the broader political context of the strife did not fall within the sphere of the Roman governor and his legions.118 The danger that the citizens of Rhodes faced was that they might provoke a tightening of ‘indirect’ Roman rule and, as a result, lose their precarious privilege, which had 113

In the Rhodiakos the rebirth of Rhodes is also linked with the myth of its origins: if the gods blessed the emergence of the island from the sea, they will in the same way care for its reconstruction. 114 Sun: Diod. 5.56. On the local cults see Morelli 1959; Papachristodoulou 1992, with reference to recent discoveries and ongoing research. 115 See Or. 25.31–32, with the mention of the nymph Rhode, symbol of the united city: Robert 1967, 7–14. 116 Schmitt 1957, 173 ff.; Kontorini 1983, 1–59. 117 Classic reference to Plut. Praec.ger. 814Eff., and some speeches by Dio Chrysostom: Lewin 1995, 50 ff., Sartre 1991, 127 ff.; Salmeri 2000. 118 On the status of free cities in the empire: Millar 1999. On political problems: Kokkinia 2004.

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already been revoked several times. In the first century of the Empire, the island had many a close relationship with the Julio-Claudians, from the visits of Augustus to the long stay of Tiberius to the quarrels that led to its loss of freedom under Claudius.119 Rhodes experienced the same change of status as Cyzicus, perhaps on the same grounds: the mistreatment or killing of Roman citizens.120 Some years later, Nero granted the Rhodians the recovery of their freedom and reportedly did not plunder their statues. Imperial favor ceased under Vespasian, perhaps unexpectedly.121 Once again freedom was lost, but after further quarrels under Domitian, the island probably recovered it in the early eighties.122 Incapable of stability, the Rhodians alternated between good faith (and flattery) towards Rome and unrest and internal sedition. Aristides’ reflections are supported by an acute awareness of the Rhodian situation: ‘You are proud of the fact that you are free and you praise your democracy so much, that you would not even accept immortality unless someone would allow you to keep this form of government’ (Or. 24.22), says the orator, adding that since the Rhodians are not ‘able to calculate that if things continue in this fashion, it is quite possible that you will be in danger of being deprived of this apparent liberty. And if you do not voluntarily heed this advice, another will come who will forcibly save you, since, as a rule, rulers are neither ignorant of such behaviour nor disregard it’ (22).123 This remark follows a long section about the dynamics of tyranny that contains, it would seem, historical analysis that draws on remote epochs of Greek history. It is true that the reference to Lesbos (54–55) does not hint at the contemporary situation of the island,124 but alludes to the troubled times of Alcaeus. The orator could address a concealed admonition to his audience: at the present, faction was the best ally of Roman power. Of course, Rome and Roman magistrates are not explicitly named in the speech. More explicit caveats in Plutarch and Dio, however, 119 Augustus: Jos BJ 1.20.287. Tiberius: see recently Jacob-Sonnabend 1995, with sources and literature. 120 Suet. Claud. 25; Tac. Ann. 12.58; Cass. Dio 60.24.4. Thornton 1999, esp. 512 ff. 121 Nero: AP 9.178. See the prudent treatment of the matter in Dio Or. 31.110, with Jones 1978, 148–150; Swain 1996, 428–429; Salmeri 1999, 236 ff., 241. Vespasian: Jos. BJ, 7.2.1; Suet. Vesp. 8.6; Dio 66.12. 122 Quarrels: Plut. Praec.ger. 815C. The chronology is much debated: see Momigliano 1951, and now Bresson 1996. 123 ‘Apparent liberty’ (tên dokousan eleutherian): supposedly a negative judgement, but its meaning seems debatable. See Dio Or. 44.12: tên legomenên eleutherian. 124 Labarre 1996, 91 ff.

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are illuminating. If a stasis allowed the Roman rulers to assume a sort of tyrannical power over the Greek cities (Dio Or. 38.36), the risk of losing the existing freedom was serious and became a strong argument for preaching self-restraint.125 And if the precarious status of freedom granted by the emperor did not automatically imply exemption from tribute, at least it allowed the cities to control their own laws and institutions and partially freed them from the obligations connected with their status within the province.126 Beyond the arguments created out of conventional topoi, care for civic concord was indeed the last resort of the local authorities, as Plutarch knew: Λε!πεται δ" τF. πολιτικF. μνον κ τ.ν Xποκειμ νων *ργων, ] μηδεν8ς *λαττν στι τ.ν γα&.ν, -μνοιαν μποιεν κα0 φιλ!αν ε0 τος συνοικοσιν, *ριδας δ4 κα0 διχοφροσνας κα0 δυσμ νειαν ξαιρεν :πασαν (Praec. ger.

824D).127

The present situation leaves the politicians a benefit, which is not of slight importance: to develop concord and mutual friendship among the populace, to eradicate quarrels, discords, enmities.

To be sure, the oration On Concord is far from the polemical attitude of Dio Chrysostom, and does not express an anti-Roman attitude. As Aristides argues now, the present state of things is the best foundation for concord, for the empire brings unity and freedom for everybody (Or. 24.31). Thus the Rhodians must preserve their wisdom and reason, as well as their (limited) freedom: ‘Believe […] that is more profitable to be a slave than to use freedom as a means for evil, and that nonetheless there is some fear that you may even be deprived of this means’ (58). Whatever its actual content, the democratic pride of the Rhodians deserves closer consideration. Modern information on local institutions is unsatisfactory. The Rhodian politeia was analyzed by Aristotle, who studied the troubled political situation of the island.128 After changes were introduced in the early Hellenistic age,129 the politeia was praised by Polybius for its concern with isêgoria and parrhêsia. Diodorus called it 125 Contra: Stertz 1984, 1258. The care for concord and autonomy was also part of the ‘system of honour’ which was very important in the civic life of the Empire: Lendon 1997, 154 ff. 126 But not from the correctores or from the inspections by the governor, if needed: Sartre 1995, 205 f. 127 See now Bost-Pouderon 2006, II, 119 ff. 128 Aristot. Pol. 5.3, 1302b; 5.4, 1304b. On the Constitution of Rhodes see Aristotle fr. 569R3 = 586 Gigon, but also Heraclides, Excerpta 65 Dilts. 129 Pugliese Carratelli 1949.

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the ‘best’ of all politeiai, and Strabo, who wrote at length about social welfare in late Hellenistic Rhodes, specified that ‘their rule was not democratic’.130 Strabo’s statement on the Rhodian welfare has been repeatedly discussed: from a social point of view, we may note that if the government cared for the have-nots, this implies that they actually existed and needed help.131 Like Cyzicus, Rhodes could benefit from a real eunomia (Strabo 12.8.11). This was perhaps due in both cities to the permanent efficacy of the civic courts: during the Hellenistic age, Rhodes apparently hosted no foreign judges, but was able to send its own arbitrators to other Greek cities, as Aristides aptly remarks (Or. 24.55).132 Perhaps influenced by the authority of Panaetius and Posidonius, the Roman tradition followed the same path: Cicero in the De re publica had special praise for Rhodes, which he considered together with Athens as a city with a sort of mixed constitution and as a place where the defaults of democracy were limited.133 A later allusion in Tacitus’ Dialogus again couples Rhodes and Athens, where oratory flourished, but under an ochlocracy where omnes omnia poterant, and his words appear more as an allusion to the situation of Rhodes in the first century BC than to the Hellenistic age.134 The troubles of the Roman civil wars apparently destroyed that admired democratic balance and transformed Rhodes, as they did many other Greek cities, into a battlefield of local factions. When Cassius approached Rhodes in the late spring of 43 BC in order to collect ships and soldiers against Dolabella, he met with resistance:135 a faction faithful to Caesar held power on the island and refused to help him. Cassius’ delegate Lentulus branded the Rhodians as foolish and arrogant (amentia, superbia).136 The subsequent siege worsened the situation, with devastating effects on Rhodian poliPlb. 27.4.5. See also 33.15.3; Diod. 20.81; Strabo 14.2.5. O’Neil 1981; Migeotte 1989; Gabrielsen 1997, 24 ff. and 31 ff. on economic inequalities. 132 [Sall.] Ep. Caes. 1.7.12: Neque Rhodios neque aliae civitates umquam iudiciorum suorum paenituit, ubi promiscue dives et pauper, ut cuique fors tulit, de maximis rebus iuxta ac de minimis disceptat; Gauthier 1984, 103. 133 Cic. Rep. 1.31.47; 3.35.48, etc. 134 Tac. Dial. 40.3: the sarcastic remark by Maternus is currently thought to refer only to Athens. The text does not guarantee it. 135 Cic. Fam. 12.13.3; 14.3; 15.2–4. 136 Not entirely new: Cato’s speech quoted by Gellius 6.3 refers often to the famosissima superbia of the Rhodians: Gell. 6.3.48–51, 52 [= frr. 124 and 126 Sblendorio Cugusi]. See also the speech referred to by Liv. 45.23.18. 130 131

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tics. Before launching the final attack on the island, Cassius met some Rhodian delegates, among them his former teacher during his stay on the island. Archelaos begged him to spare the city, using typical ‘Rhodian’ arguments like the city’s love for freedom, its Dorian origins, and its warlike attitude against Demetrius and Mithridates.137 This concrete exhibition of Rhodes’ goodwill towards Rome proved useless: the Rhodians were defeated by sea, they lost many ships, and after a short siege they surrendered to Cassius. According to Plutarch, some Rhodians tried to flatter the conqueror by proclaiming him ‘king and lord’. Cassius refused the honours: instead, 8500 talents were collected by the seizure of all private treasure, and the city paid an indemnity of 500 talents. Later, in 42 BC, thirty more Rhodian ships were seized by Cassius Parmensis, and the remains of the navy were burnt.138 It was the end for the Rhodian navy. But tradition might prove stronger than reality. Stereotyped and out-of-date as it might be, praise for Rhodian eutaxia, eunomia, and sea power endured until the imperial period, as the Rhodian Oration by Dio Chrysostom repeatedly shows.139 In the same way, the myth of Rhodian freedom survived in the literary tradition until the days of Aristides.140 The orators of the Second Sophistic repeatedly urged the cities in the Greek East to preserve even the palest form of freedom.141 This behaviour has been considered both by the ancients and the moderns to be a kind of wishful thinking that concealed the real situation of total submission. The Rhodians called ‘democracy’ what was in fact a timocratic and elitist form of rule, where most of the local power was in the hands of a restricted elite of families.142 The winged words of Aristides were part of unceasing efforts to preserve local autonomy App. Civ. 4.67.283 ff.: see also Gowing 1991. Tribute: Plut. Brut. 30.3; 32.4. Burning: App. Civ. 5.2.4. Further data in Dio Or. 31.66, 103–104. 139 Or. 31.6, 146, 157, and also Or. 32.52, where the behaviour of Rhodes is positively contrasted to that of the Alexandrians (these lines however were bracketed by von Arnim). 140 Also, the collection of possibly fictional epistles attributed to Brutus preserves a couple of letters to and from Rhodes: Ep. Brut. 11–12 Hercher. In Ep. 13–14 (Letters to and from Cos), Rhodes appears as having been won over by Cassius. Links between Brutus and the islanders are unattested, but the material is close to the Plutarchean narration, and might be of some historical relevance. Asked to choose between enmity or friendship, the Rhodians give a proud answer, which exhibits a deep fondness for freedom. 141 Guerber 2002, esp. 128 ff. 142 Schmitz 1997, 39 ff.; Bresson 2004. 137 138

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vis-à-vis Roman power and internal social balance in favor of the wealthy.143 The orator had the cultural and political skill necessary to shore up the pride of the imperial oligarchies, since his celebration of concord opened the path to the preservation of a total subordination of the masses to the few.144 It was for the wealthy that the Roman Empire formed a comfortable structure. Freedom, octroyée as it might be, was still preferable to a complete dependence within the formula provinciae: νν δ4 τ!ς D στKσεως φορμ", D <>αστ,νης ο%κ ξουσ!α; ο% κοιν" μ4ν :πασα γ7, βασιλε?ς δ4 εLς, νμοι δ4 κοινο0 πAσι, πολιτεεσ&αι δ4 κα0 σιωπAν κα0 πα!ρειν κα0 μ νειν δεια -πσην τις βολεται; (Or. 24.31).

But now what cause is there for faction, or what lack of opportunity for a pleasant life? Is not all the earth united, is there not one emperor and common laws for all, and is there not as much freedom as one wishes, to engage in politics and to keep silent, and to travel and to remain at home?

I cannot say whether this attitude was realistic or pessimistic, ingenuous or marked by illusion: I only understand very well that these texts express above all the fear of losing a privileged status and reveal sad resignation to the limits of political participation.145 Both attitudes make the study of the Second Sophistic particularly fitting for our disillusioned times.

Ferrary 1999. Schmitz 1997, 43 ff., with reference to Arist. Or. 24.35; Or. 26.66, 68 and bibliography; Connolly 2001. On the role of the mob see also Thornton 2001; id. 2005, 276 ff. 145 Veyne 2005, esp. 215, about Dio Or. 31. 143 144

part four RECEPTION

chapter twelve ARISTIDES’ FIRST ADMIRER

Christopher Jones Since the 1930’s it has been known from an Arabic translation that Galen had observed Aristides, classing him among those ‘whose souls are strong by nature and whose bodies are weak… This man was one of the most outstanding orators. So it happened that lifelong activity in talking and declaiming caused his whole body to fade away’.1 Galen survived at least into the late 190’s, and clearly recorded his observation only after Aristides’ death, which must have occurred about 180.2 Another testimony to the orator has received less attention, though it is almost certainly earlier than Galen’s. This witness is Phrynichos, whom modern scholarship usually calls an Atticist or a lexicographer, when it calls him anything at all. Unlike Galen, Phrynichos does not speak from autopsy, but is a more valuable witness in that he shows how Aristides was regarded by sophists, critics, and others in or near his own profession. Phrynichos’ discussion of Aristides is preserved in the summary of the Sophistic Preparation made by Photios in the ninth century, not in his only extant work, the Ecloge. In the present paper I will first (1) examine what he has to say about Aristides, at least in the form mediated by Photios, and then take up three subjects: (2) the date at which he wrote; (3) the local and social setting in which he wrote; and (4) the literary context, that is, what in his views of language and literature might have helped to make him the first known author to praise Aristides.

1 2

Trans. Bowersock 1969, 62. See ibid. 63–65 for Galen’s date of death.

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Photios summarizes the eleventh book of the Sophistic Preparation as follows:3 =Ο δ4 φεξ7ς Μηνοδ,ρFω προσπεφ,νηται πKλιν, ν Fp κα0 Αριστε!δου τος λγοις (Sς φησιν) ντυχcν ρτι, ττε κμKζοντος, πολ?ν το νδρ8ς *παινον ποιεται, κα0 Μαρκιανν φησι, τ8ν κριτικ8ν συγγραφ α, XπερορAν μ4ν ΠλKτωνος κα0 Δημοσ& νους, τ ς δ4 Βροτου το Ιταλο πιστολ ς προκρ!νειν κα0 καννα τ7ς ν λγFω ρετ7ς ποφα!νειν. Τατα δ4 οiτς φησιν ο%χ0 τ"ν τοιατην κρ!σιν ποδεχμενος, λλ’ εOς τ8 μ" &αυμKζειν ε$ τινες κα0 τ7ς Αριστε!δου δξης λKττονα τ8ν νδρα νομ!ζουσιν, ο[τω κλ ους το ν λγοις εOς κρον λKσαντα· qψατο γ ρ - φ&νος Xπ’ ν!ων πεμπμενος κα0 Αριστε!δου, Sσπερ κα0 λλων πολλ.ν παιδε!>α διενεγκντων.

The next (book) is addressed to Menodoros again, and here, having recently read the works of Aristides, so he says, who was then at the height of his success, he lavishes high praise on the man, and says that Marcianus the critic despises Plato and Demosthenes, and prefers the letters of the Italian Brutus, and considers them the standard of excellence in style. This he says not because he approves of this judgment, but so that it should not be cause for wonder that some people considered Aristides less than his reputation, when he had progressed so far in literary fame; for envy emitted by certain people had touched even Aristides, as also many others conspicuous for their culture.

For the sake of the following argument, two items of this translation need to be justified. Where I have translated ‘having recently read (ντυχcν ρτι) the works of Aristides’, Henry in the standard edition translates ‘après avoir découvert depuis peu les écrits d’Aristide’ (‘having recently discovered the writings of Aristides’). Though ντυχεν can mean ‘to come across’, ‘to meet with’, in a literary context it should mean ‘to read’, a sense in which Photius uses it again in this same passage, though he usually prefers ναγιγν,σκειν.4 Where I have translated ‘so that it should not be cause for wonder that some people considered Aristides less than his reputation, when he had progressed so far in literary fame’, Henry understands, ‘pour qu’on ne s’étonne pas si certains placent au-dessous du renom d’Aristide un écrivain qui a

3 Bibl. 101a, 15–27. References are to the edition of Henry 1960. Translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 4 Bibl.101a, 13, ντυχcν τος γεγραμμ νοις, where Henry again translates ‘après avoir découverts ses écrits’. On the various verbs signifying ‘to read’ in Greek, see Chantraine 1950, especially 122–126 for ντυγχKνειν.

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atteint un tel degré d’illustration dans les lettres’ (‘in order that one should not be surprised if certain people place below the fame of Aristides [that is, ‘judge Aristides superior to’] a writer [Brutus, i.e.] who has attained such a degree of celebrity in literature’). But noone could have thought Brutus a notable figure of Greek literature, whereas Photios has just said that Aristides was ‘at his peak’, κμKζων. In addition, Henry’s translation turns the definite τ8ν νδρα into the indefinite ‘a writer’, whereas it surely stands for the pronoun α%τν, as it does twice in this same passage (Zκμασε δ4 - νρ, ‘the man flourished’, πολ?ν το νδρ8ς *παινον ποιεται, ‘he gives high praise to the man’). Photios means that some people consider Aristides less than his reputation, in other words to be overrated, but that such a judgment is no surprise: he was at the height of his reputation, and so likely to attract jealousy, and moreover, an eminent critic had made the similar mistake of rating the letters of Brutus more highly than those of Plato and Demosthenes. When Phrynichos was writing, therefore, Aristides was already at the height of his fame, but had certain detractors. On the subject of such detractors Aristides himself is far from reticent. One of the best documents of the dislike he could inspire is the work, a written and not a spoken one, On the Passing Remark or On the Digression (περ0 το παραφ& γματος). The work is usually dated to the year 152/53 or shortly thereafter, since the speech in which the digression occurred was almost certainly the extant To Athena (Or. 37 K.), which must belong to that year.5 The unnamed critic to whom the speech On the Passing Remark was addressed had carped at Aristides for inserting praise of himself into a speech in praise of the goddess. To make matters worse, the wretch had pretended to make his observation out of pure goodwill; there was no need, he said, for Aristides to praise himself, since everyone knew how good he was. From various allusions, it appears that the critic heard the speech as a member of an audience gathered in the Asclepieion of Pergamum, and one could well imagine that the scene was the small theatre in the northeast corner.

5

Behr (1968, 53; 1981, 382) dates it between 145 and 147.

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The only source for Phrynichos’ life and career, apart from hints in his own works, is the brief and corrupted entry in the Suda (Φ 764, IV 766 Adler):6 Suda. Φρνιχος, Βι&υνς, σοφιστς. Αττικιστ"ν D Περ0 Αττικ.ν PνομKτων βιβλ!α β, Τι&εμ νων συναγωγν, Σοφιστικ7ς παρασκευ7ς βιβλ!α μζ, οJ δ4 οδ. ‘Phrynichos, Bithynian, sophist. (He wrote) Atticist, or On Attic Words, two books; a collection of tithemena [perhaps, ‘approved locutions’]; Sophistic Preparation in 47 books, though some say in 74’.

Since Photios makes Phrynichos an ‘Arabian’, not a ‘Bithynian’, either he or the Suda is in error, or else Phrynichos came from somewhere in the Near East populated by ‘Arabs’ in the ancient sense (not necessarily the province of Arabia) and later settled in Bithynia, not at all an unlikely progression. The question when Phrynichos wrote both the extant Ecloge and the lost Preparation is complex and controversial. In brief, the Ecloge is dedicated to a certain Cornelianus, a man of high culture who has been appointed secretary (epistoleus) by plural emperors.7 Provided that the plural implies two joint emperors, as is usually understood, other references in the work narrow the choice to either Marcus and Lucius or Marcus and Commodus. While there is no clear means of deciding between the two pairs, it might be inferred from a reference to ‘a letter of Alexander the Sophist’ that Phrynichos had read a letter penned by the sophist Alexander of Seleuceia, the so-called Clay-Plato, who was ab epistulis Graecis to Marcus during the German Wars.8 If that is right, then the joint emperors under whom Cornelianus held the same post will be Marcus and Commodus, and there is a gap in the fasti of this office just about the years 177–180. As we shall see, such a date is also close to the likely date of the Sophistic Preparation.9

6 I read Αττικιστ"ν D Περ0 Αττικ.ν with Bernhardy: Αττικιστ"ν (or -τ"ς) Xπ’ Α. mss., followed by Adler. 7 κ προκρ!των ποφαν& ντα Xπ8 βασιλ ων πιστολ α α%τ.ν, s. 394 (Fischer 1974). Subsequent references to Phrynichos will be to the sections of this edition. 8 s. 234. On Alexander: Philostr. Vit. Soph. 2.5, pp. 76–82 Kayser, cf. PIR2 A 503. 9 Cornelianus: PIR1 S 716; PIR2 C 1303; Eck 1991, expanding the suggestion in PIR1 (ignored in PIR2) that he is the Sulpicius Cornelianus recommended by Fronto (ad Amicos I 2, p. 171 van den Hout [Teubner]). For a listing of Greeks who held the office

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For the date of this, Photios provides several clues in his summary. The crucial part is as follows: GΗκμασε δ4 - ν"ρ ν τος χρνοις ΜKρκου βασιλ ως =Ρωμα!ων κα0 το παιδ8ς α%το Κομμδου, πρ8ς ]ν κα0 τ"ν παρχ"ν το συντKγματος ποιεται πιγρKφων· ‘ΚομμδFω Κα!σαρι Φρνιχος χα!ρειν’. Αλλ ΚομμδFω τ8 βιβλ!ον προσφων.ν, κκε!νFω προοιμιαζμενος, κα0 παρα!νεσιν φιλομα&!ας κατατι& μενος, κα0 ξα!ρων τF. λγFω τ8 βιβλ!ον, ν οLς λ γει λζ α%τF. μ χρι το ττε καιρο συντετKχ&αι λγους, οfς κα0 να& σ&αι λ γει τF. βασιλε, παγγ λλεται κα0 λλους τοσοτους φιλοπονσασ&αι τ7ς ζω7ς α%τ8ν ο%κ πολιμπανοσης.

He lived in the time of Marcus, the emperor of the Romans, and his son Commodus. He addresses the dedication of the work to the latter, beginning ‘To Caesar Commodus from Phrynichos, greetings’. But though he addresses the book to Commodus, and dedicates the preface to him, gives him advice about the love of learning, and magnifies the book by his language, saying that he has composed thirty-six books up to the present time, which he says he dedicates to the emperor, he promises to complete as many again if life does not desert him.

Several conclusions emerge from this preface, despite Photios’ sometimes cloudy form of expression. It is not clear whether Marcus is still alive, though that is suggested by Phrynichos’ addressing Commodus as ‘Caesar’ and not ‘Augustus’, which Commodus begins to be called in documents from 177; a date in Marcus’ lifetime is compatible with Phrynichos’ also referring to Commodus as ‘emperor’ (basileus).10 The phrase ‘advice about the love of learning’ (parainesin philomathias katatithemenos) would also fit better if addressed to a young prince rather than to a mature emperor. Commodus was born in 161, became Caesar in 166, and joint Augustus with his father in 177. Thus the indications seem to converge on a date in the middle 170’s for this prefatory book, even though by that time Phrynichos had already reached a total of thirtysix books. If the Suda is right in saying that there were versions of the work going up to 47 or even 74 books, then Photios must have come across some kind of first edition, when the author had not yet fulfilled his promise of adding further books.

of ab epistulis, see Bowie 1982, 57–59; for the date of his probable predecessor, Vibianus Tertullus (ca. 175–177): Mitchell 2003, 146–148. 10 Cf. the opening of Athenagoras’ Legatio, in which the two rulers are addressed both as autokratores and as megaloi basileôn (ed. Pouderon, Sources chrétiennes 379, 70); it is also possible that basileus is Photius’ own contribution. A date after 180 is preferred by Swain 1996, 54.

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If a date in the 170’s provides a likely terminus ante, at least for this first version, what are the termini ante and post of the reference to Aristides in the eleventh book? Here the crucial clue lies in the dedication to the first book. According to Photios, Phrynichos dedicated this to ‘a certain Aristocles, [being] eager for the work to be an amusement suitable for his birthday, and for him to be his (Phrynichos’) fellow-celebrant (sympaistês)’. He also dedicated the next two books to Aristocles, but addressed the fourth to a compatriot and friend called Julianus, since Aristocles had become ‘a participant in the great council at Rome by royal decree’.11 This ‘certain Aristocles’, whose name meant nothing to Photios, is nowadays agreed to be Claudius Aristocles, the Pergamene sophist, who is known from a notice in Philostratus’ Lives of the Sophists and from an inscription found at Olympia. He had been converted to rhetoric by hearing Herodes Atticus lecture at Rome and, what particularly matters for us, he later became the teacher of Aristides. Both Philostratus and the inscription call him consular, so that he was perhaps plucked out of his academic career and raised from equestrian status into the senate, not at all an unusual progression in this period. Assuming that he was younger than Herodes and older than Aristides, he should have been born approximately about 110; but since Philostratus also says that he died ‘with his hair half-gray, approaching old age’ (mesaipolios, prosbainôn tô gêraskein), he presumably did not live much past the year 170. It follows that Phrynichos had reached at least the thirteenth book, the last to be dedicated to Aristocles, by this date; his move to Rome mentioned in the fourth book might have occurred as early as the 150’s.12 It also follows that Phrynichos’ reference to Aristides in the eleventh book must fall in Aristides’ own lifetime.

The Social and Geographical Setting Phrynichos’ easy friendship with Aristocles before the latter’s move to Rome implies that the two men were social intimates in Pergamum, 100b, 18–29. Aristocles: Philostr. VS 2.3 p. 74 Kayser; PIR2 C 789; Avotins 1978; cf. Puech 2002, 145–148, putting Aristocles’ consulate not before 160 and his death at the end of the 160’s. The notion of a rivalry between Pollux and Phrynichos in the reign of Commodus has no ancient basis: Swain 1996, 54 n. 48. 11 12

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and this perhaps suggests one way in which Phrynichos came to form so early and so high an opinion of Aristides; they might have been fellow-pupils of Aristocles, who according to Philostratus attracted ‘all the Hellenes in that region’ to his lectures.13 There is another link between Phrynichos and Pergamum, the sole passage in the Ecloge in which he refers to an inscription rather than to a literary work. Under the rubric κατ’ 'ναρ, ‘in accordance with a dream’, he observes (396), ‘Polemo the Ionian sophist set up a bronze statue of the rhetor Demosthenes in the shrine of Asclepios at Pergamon in Mysia, and put the following inscription on it: “Polemo to Demosthenes of Paiania in accordance with a dream (κατ’ 'ναρ)” ’. Phrynichos objects that the correct expression is not κατ’ 'ναρ but 'ναρ or 'ναρ Oδ,ν, and comments, ‘so important it is to understand vocabulary, when one sees even the leading figures of the Greeks tripping up’. As it happens, the excavators of the Asclepieion found this very inscription, with the unimportant variant that it reads κατ 'ναρ, and similar expressions are very common in inscriptions: it may be said in passing that an epigraphical and papyrological commentary on the Ecloge would be of great interest.14 Like other authors of the period, Phrynichos was very eloquent on the subject of his illnesses. In the fifth book he mentioned a whole series of them: stranguria (an affliction of the bladder), phrenitis (inflammation of the brain), gastric bleeding, and many other ailments; in the eighth book, he complained of nosos, and again in the fourteenth he mentioned a recent recovery.15 He was therefore perhaps a patient in the Asclepieion, another link with Aristides. If it is accepted that Phrynichos, whatever his origin, had connections with Pergamum and its Asclepieion, two names among his dedicatees draw attention, as well as that of Aristocles. The first of these is Julianus, whom he calls his ‘friend and compatriot’ (sympolitês kai philos). Dedicating his fourth book to Julianus in place of the now-absent Aristocles, Phrynichos asks him to be a ‘judge and assessor’ (kritês kai syngnômôn) of his work, and similarly asks him to correct any deficiencies in the eighth book.16 ‘Julianus’ is a very frequent name, but in this 13 Philostr. VS 2.5, p. 76, 21 Kayser. I am assuming that, as argued above, Photios’ words ντυχcν ρτι do not imply that Phrynichos had ‘recently discovered’ Aristides. 14 Inscription: Habicht 1969, no. 33. For this and similar phrases in inscriptions: van Straten 1976. 15 Bibl. 100b, 35–40; 101a, 9; 101a, 32–35. 16 Bibl. 100b, 28–29; 101a8–10.

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case is not perhaps beyond recognition. Aristides mentions an occasion of about 145, when he met the celebrated benefactor of Pergamum, Rufinus, together with ‘Julianus the governor’ (hêgemôn) in ‘the temple’. This ‘governor’ must be the Julianus who is attested by an inscription as proconsul of Asia in 145, and in that position helped Aristides in one of his immunity suits. He must also be the Tiberius Julius Julianus who has recently emerged as a consul suffect in the year 129.17 It is tempting to suppose that he is also Phrynichos’ Julianus, who would thus be of the right social standing to succeed Aristocles as the recipient of the next book of the Preparation. If that is right, then both men must originate either from ‘Arabia’ or Bithynia. Bithynians are to be expected in the Asclepieion of Pergamum. One is the praetorian Sedatus of Nicaea whom Aristides knew as one of the ‘more conspicuous worshippers’ and ‘an excellent man’; like Julianus, he was a friend of Rufinus.18 As we saw, Aristides connects Julianus the governor and Rufinus the benefactor, who by his full name is L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus, consul ordinarius in the year 142.19 A Rufinus appears in Phrynichos’ list as the dedicatee of the ninth book. According to Photios, the author said that Aristocles was responsible for his beginning the work, and Rufinus would be responsible for his finishing it, since having read what he had written, he was able to see its usefulness and praised the author’s labor.20 Like Julianus, he would be a worthy counterpart to Aristocles, who now sat in the Roman senate, and the ‘early’ chronology presumed here would fit, since Aristides speaks of Rufinus as present in Pergamum in the mid-150’s. He was one of Aristides’ most influential admirers, and a strong supporter in his efforts to avoid public service.21 None of the For the proconsul: Syll.3 850, 19 = Oliver 1989, no. 138 = Inschr. Ephesos no. 1491; I 76; Syme 1988 [1983], 329–330; for his consulate, AE 2000, 1138. To be distinguished from Tib. Julius Julianus Alexander, governor of Arabia attested in 123/24, consul suffect presumably in 126, on whom see Eck 1983, 158. 18 Aristid. Or. 48.48 (beltistos andrôn); Or. 50.16 (praetorian), 43 (Rufinus). See further Habicht 1969 discussing no. 47; Bowersock 1969, 86–87, though the identification with Sedatius Severianus, cos. suff. 153, is now excluded: see Syme 1991a [1986], 227 n. 128, citing AE 1981, 640. 19 PIR2 C 1637; Habicht 1969, no. 2; Halfmann 1979, 154 no. 66; Halfmann 2001, 56–57. If the dating followed here is correct, Phrynichos’ friend cannot be Claudius Rufinus, the sophist of Smyrna first attested under Commodus, as suggested in PIR2 C 998. 20 101a, 11–14, φKσκων α$τιον μ4ν το πKρξασ&αι τ7ς συγγραφ7ς Αριστοκλ α γεν σ&αι, το δ4 π0 π ρας λ&εν α%τ8ν ξιον *σεσ&αι, @τι ντυχcν τος γεγραμμ νοις τ τε χρσιμον συνιδεν *σχε κα0 παιν σειε τ8ν πνον. 21 Or. 50, sections 28, 83, 107. 17

PIR2

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other dedicatees is known, though the names are certainly compatible with a west Anatolian context. ‘Basileides the Milesian sophist’, who received the fifteenth book, may one day be revealed by epigraphy, if indeed he is not already one of the several men named Basileides already known at Miletus.22

Phrynichos on Language and Literature Phrynichos’ tastes reveal him not merely as an Atticist, as he is often labeled, but an Atticist of an especially conservative stripe, and in this respect too he and Aristides would have had much in common. In general, his ideal is the Attic usage of the fifth century, as represented above all by Thucydides and the writers of Old Comedy. When he cites Xenophon, it is to complain that he offends against the rules of his native dialect in using odmê rather than osmê (62), or to say that his single use of acmên in place of eti does not justify others in using it (93). The form acmên also appears in Polybius as well as in papyri and inscriptions, and it survives as the modern akomê, an instance of Phrynichos’ value as an observer of the transformation of classical Greek into medieval and modern.23 He is particularly incensed by what in his eyes is a depraved taste for Menander, from whom he cites a whole series of supposed vulgarisms (394). We are reminded of his disapproval of the critic Marcianus, who similarly put the letters of Brutus above those of Demosthenes. There is no study of Aristides’ citations similar to that of Helmbold and O’Neil for Plutarch or of Householder for Lucian, so that it is not easy to measure precisely the degree of similarity in their preferences. Among the poets of Old Comedy Aristides cites Aristophanes often, almost always from plays still extant, and he has a few references to Eupolis and Cratinus. He mentions Menander only twice, once for his portrait of an immoral Phrygian girl and once for a dream where his name serves as an omen (menein and andra).24 Among historians, Aristides shows roughly equal favor towards Herodotus, Thucydides and 22 Note especially the Vergilius Basileides of Rehm 1958, no. 155, prophêtês of Apollo Didymeus in the later second century. 23 Klaffenbach 1939, 213. Phrynichos also censures the use of the word νηρν to mean ‘water’ (27), long before it appears in literature. 24 Or. 3.665; Or. 47.51.

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Xenophon, no doubt because their subject matter was indispensable to his arguments about Greek history. He also differs from Phrynichos in his frequent citation of the lyric poets such as Pindar, but then the lexicographer was not likely to cite these poets when recommending Attic usage. Among the orators, Aristides cites only Lysias, Isocrates and Demosthenes, omitting even Aeschines. Phrynichos cites Lysias, not always with approval, and otherwise only Demosthenes, omitting Aeschines as well as Isocrates. Like Aristides, he cites none of the Hellenistic poets or prose writers, except in passing to disapprove of a word in the historian Phylarchus (399). He does, it is true, refer to the bad linguistic habits of ‘Alexandrians’, for example the form τε&εληκ ναι in place of the correct o&εληκ ναι (305), and here he perhaps refers to Hellenistic writers rather than contemporaries, since the forms he indicts had been in use for centuries.25 In conclusion, Phrynichos is certainly an ‘Atticist’, but in the first place he is, as the Suda correctly says, a sophist, one of those many sophists whom, for reasons now difficult to discern, Philostratus passed over in the Lives. Perhaps of Arabian origin, he resided in Bithynia, but appears to have frequented Pergamum and its famous Asclepieion. His acquaintance with the notable sophist of the city, Aristocles, helps to explain his knowledge of Aristides, Aristocles’ most distinguished pupil. Phrynichos evidently moved in high society. Apart from Aristocles, Rufinus and Julianus, he was also on friendly terms with the ab epistulis Cornelianus, to whom he dedicates the Ecloge, perhaps at a date close to that of the first edition of the Sophistic Preparation. Phrynichos’ way of addressing Commodus might even suggest that he was one of the royal tutors, or at least was close to the court. Above all, he was sufficiently in touch with advanced opinion of the day to recognize the genius of Aristides, a judgment that succeeding centuries were to reaffirm into early modern times.26

25 For τε&εληκ ναι see Gignac 1981, 247 (but Phrynichos does not say that τε&εληκ ναι is the ‘proper Alexandrian and Egyptian form’). The other example (367) is χειμKζω

with the meaning ‘to distress’, ‘to annoy’, which is found as early as Sophocles’ Ichneutae: LSJ s.v. III 2. 26 On Aristides’ later reputation, see now Jones 2008.

chapter thirteen VYING WITH ARISTIDES IN THE FOURTH CENTURY: LIBANIUS AND HIS FRIENDS

Raffaella Cribiore Modesty was not an attribute of Aristides. When he attempted to mortify his vanity, his dreams (like the reassuring mirror of an evil queen in a fairy tale) confirmed that he was the most marvelous rhetor in the empire. He dedicated a tripod to Asclepius, and immediately a dream corrected his self-effacing dedicatory inscription, offering another in which the god assured him of his future fame by calling his speeches ‘everlasting’.1 In another dream Aristides expressed his wish to live for many years but was fearful that his life might be cut short and therefore dutifully revised his speeches in order to secure the favorable judgment of posterity.2 Over and over in the Sacred Tales he described his triumphs and the frenzy of his audience, even though in passing he lamented that, because he was not interested in humoring the masses, his contemporaries sometimes preferred more flamboyant orators who catered to their tastes.3 Posterity (hoi hysteron anthropoi), in any case, richly rewarded him, and in the fourth century in particular he was revered, and his works were used as models of perfect oratory.4 The sophist Libanius in Antioch was one of Aristides’ most fervent admirers, and paid tribute to him in letters and orations.5 The letters reveal a circle of cultivated friends who exchanged painted portraits and works of Aristides and the declamations and speeches that they wrote in response to his works. Several extant orations of Libanius were written to vie with his second-century predecessor, and Libanius

Or. 50.45–47. Or. 51.52. 3 E.g., Or. 34 passim and 28.116–118. 4 As in the case of Libanius, so many of his works were preserved because of his favor in late antiquity and in the Byzantine age. 5 See the edition of Foerster 1903–1927. For translations of the letters, see Norman 1992, henceforth, N; Cabouret 2000; Bradbury 2004; Cribiore 2007a, Appendix 1. 1 2

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evoked his eloquence in other, less well-known, passages. One of the questions I ask in this paper is why Aristides was so irresistible to orators in the fourth century: what were the reasons (besides his perfect Attic style) that made him a cardinal point of reference? In addition, since the direct references to Aristides in Libanius date to the first phase of his activity in Antioch, it is meaningful to inquire whether Aristides’ influence on the fourth-century sophist can be perceived in later periods. In the year 361 Libanius sent a letter from Antioch to his friend Demetrius who lived in Cilicia. Demetrius was a proficient orator, who had been governor of Phoenicia years before, and was the uncle of two of Libanius’ students.6 Libanius wrote that he was sending two speeches as a gift for Demetrius; but he was to lend them to Palladius, who was then governor of Cilicia.7 In one of these speeches, Libanius vied with Herodotus and in the other with Aristides. Foerster inferred that the latter was the extant Or. 64, On the Dancers, but the testimony is far from conclusive.8 Libanius admired Demetrius’ eloquence and had corresponded before with him. In a previous letter, Ep. 283, he had discussed the delivery of some orations and told his friend that he was sending him a declamation on some points of Demosthenes and a couple of introductions.9 In another letter, the gift consisted of a dream in which Libanius saw Demetrius as a triumphant orator delivering to applauding students a hamilla in rebuttal of an oration of Demosthenes.10 Sending speeches to friends to elicit their admiration and perhaps some criticism was not unusual among the pepaideumenoi. In a letter Libanius remarked that Palladius dispatched new material to him ‘every day’—supposedly only a fraction of what he composed.11 Immediately after receiving the speech in which Libanius vied with Aristides, Palladius reciprocated and from Cilicia sent him a work in which he contended with Aristides’ Thersites. The sophist in Antioch had to compare both works and ‘judge the bout’ (palaismata) between the two oraSee Demetrius 2 in PLRE I, with whom Libanius corresponded often; Ep. 615. Palladius 7 in PLRE I. In Ep. 616, Libanius told Palladius that he had sent the works. 8 Foerster in the introduction to Or. 64. Both Molloy 1996, 86, and Swain 2004, 368, accept his dating of the speech. 9 See N 64, year 359/60. 10 Ep. 243, probably from the year 360. 11 Ep. 631, year 361, N 76. 6 7

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tors but encountered some difficulties because his own copy of Aristides was damaged by age. He thought he had found Thersites in his book but was not absolutely certain and had to read the work slowly, syllable by syllable, according to the technique taught in school.12 We are in almost the same predicament because Thersites is not among the extant works of Aristides, but we may perhaps try to recover traces of it in Libanius’ own Encomium of Thersites.13 Yet there are difficulties. There are several references to Thersites in the corpus of Aristides. Since he is always presented as an ugly, ludicrous, and garrulous antihero (the very opposite of the enlightened orator), it is conceivable that Aristides preserved the traditional view of this Homeric figure in his encomium.14 Libanius, however, scrutinizes the Homeric text for any conceivable positive traits. His encomium starts by ‘begging Homer’s pardon’ and presents Thersites as a very dignified figure, endowed with courage and longing for glory, a kind of ‘democratic’ hero, concerned with the common good, fearless before kings, incapable of flattery, and even comparable to Demosthenes—this being the highest acknowledgment. Libanius’ Thersites may have been a work written in rebuttal of Aristides’. A few years later, in 364, another close friend, Quirinus, urged Libanius to vie with Aristides.15 Libanius esteemed this sophist highly, to the point of declaring that he regarded him as his teacher,16 and he missed his presence in Antioch as a supporter of his speeches. Quirinus apparently insisted that Libanius would compose a speech on the Olympic games in Antioch even though he approved of a previous oration of the sophist on the same subject.17 Libanius suspected that behind this request there was Quirinus’ desire that he would vie with two orators: Aristides, who had often written on the Olympic festival, 12 On reading by syllables as typical of beginners, see Cribiore 2001, 172–175. For the ancients the syllable (and not the word) was the unit of measure, as Libanius shows, e.g. in Or. 64.6.12; Ep. 1029.4.3 and 1286.1.8. Behr 1968 does not mention Thersites among the lost works of Aristides. 13 Foerster 1903–1927, vol. 8 Laud. 4, 243–251. 14 See Or. 28.16 Keil, and Dindorf 46.133.22 and 310.20; 52.434.8 and 53.6.28. Lucian also preserved the traditional presentation of Thersites in Ind. 7 and so did Themistius in the fourth century, Or. 21.261–262. 15 Ep. 1243. Quirinus, PLRE I pp. 760–761, was the father of his student Honoratus 3. 16 Ep. 310.3, he makes this admission in a letter to Honoratus, surmising that he will be amused. 17 It is possible that Quirinus meant Or. 11.268–269. In later years, Libanius wrote Or. 10 and 53, trying to reform certain aspects of the games.

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and a rhetor unknown to us who was Quirinus’ teacher and had celebrated the Pythian games. He wrote back to his friend saying that what Quirinus wished was impossible because the latter did not take into account how ‘Teucer was inferior to Idas and Heracles’, a slightly obscure reference, perhaps a proverb, in which Aristides was compared with Idas, whom Homer described as ‘the mightiest of men upon the earth’, but Apollonius on the other hand presented as a rather insolent hero.18 In the same year Libanius wrote a very interesting letter to his schoolmate Fortunatianus. Fortunatianus was a rhetor, a poet, and a philosopher who had apparently just discovered the works of Aristides.19 It was fated that Aristides also enjoyed your attention. Albeit slowly, you are coming closer to a writer who has and offers power, if one wishes to use it. You must not discriminate among his works but must seek after everything, take advantage of everything, and leave out nothing. I marvel—as in the case of owls to Athens—that books and speeches are dispatched to Laodiceia, which has so many. But I sent you an envelope with his arguments in opposition, some definitely authentic, and others perhaps.20

It appears that Fortunatianus was slower than Libanius’ other friends to recognize the relevance of Aristides to the development of his eloquence and poetry but had of lately acknowledged his mistake. One last, well-known letter that Libanius sent in 365 to Theodorus, the father of two of his students, powerfully evokes the attraction Aristides exercised on fourth-century rhetors.21 Libanius depicted himself as sitting beside a portrait of the orator while reading his works, as if he were trying to capture the true essence of the writer and the man by taking in both his features and his words. The search for Aristides the man bordered on the obsessive: Libanius compared two portraits sent by Theodorus with the one another friend had promptly dispatched to him upon request, and reveled in the expectation of a fourth, fulllength, portrait. Aristides was handsome, but Libanius was perplexed 18 Iliad 9.556–564; Apollonius, e.g., 1.151–153 and 462–494; 3.556–566. Idas perished in a quarrel with the Dioscuri, Pindar, Nem. 10.60–72; Theocritus 22.210–211. Salzmann 1910, 16, considers the phrase an unidentified proverb but wrongly connects Quirinus (instead of his teacher) with Heracles. 19 Ep. 1262, never translated before; Fortunatianus 1 in PLRE I. On this friend, see Ep. 1425 (Bradbury 2004, no. 154). 20 The expression ‘to send owls to Athens’ was a proverb, see Salzmann 1910, 33. 21 Ep. 1534. 2; Norman 1992, no. 143; Theodorus 11 in PLRE I. Cf. Cribiore 2007a, 22.

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by the abundance of hair in one portrait and the scarcity of it in another. Was lack of hair associated with the orator’s illness? Did his hair grow back when he was better? Theodorus, who, as the governor of Bithynia was close to where Aristides had resided, was in charge of finding some answers there.22 Vying with another writer meant acknowledging one’s forebears and disclosing one’s literary pedigree but might also involve a degree of antagonism and the attempt, often botched, to improve on a forerunner. Aristides, in his oration In Defense of Oratory, had emphasized the superiority of nature over art and maintained that great artists and writers were such because they were aware of the primacy of their inborn qualities, tried to surpass their predecessors, and ‘made them appear as children’.23 At the beginning of his oration For the Dancers, Libanius emphasized his great debt to Aristides and declared the love and attraction (*ρως, φ!λτρον) he felt for him.24 He had to justify his attempt to vie with him by proclaiming his lack of animosity and utter deference. The effect of his words—that he would choose the ability to imitate, even to a small degree, Aristides’ art over surpassing Midas in wealth—is somewhat weakened by the fact that in 363 he used a similar expression in a letter to the controversial governor Alexander, referring to the favors the latter bestowed on him.25 Yet we should not doubt that he felt indebted to his second-century predecessor. To follow the rules of perfect oratory that Aristides had set out was to honor him. Libanius declared that in composing his orations he always ‘trod the tracks’ of Aristides, an expression that he usually employed to refer to the relations of compliant students with their teachers and to the close imitation of models.26 A passage in Libanius’ Autobiography discloses the immediate consequence of ‘treading the tracks’ of others 22 Norman 1992, 294, follows those who after Ramsay 1890, 161, identified the place as Hadrianutherae. 23 To Plato: in Defense of Oratory 120, Behr 1986, 96. 24 Or. 64.4–5. Lucian in his De saltatione did not respond to Aristides’ work. 25 Ep. 838, year 363, to Alexander 5 in PLRE I, who was consularis Syriae. Midas appears as a symbol of extreme wealth in Libanius, Or. 25.25.2; 33.16.1; and 52.29.8. 26 Cf., e.g., Libanius, Ep. 316.6.4, in which his student Titianus was supposed to ‘tread in the tracks’ of his own father as a teacher and then, when he was in school, those of Libanius; see also Or. 35.21.11, where he says that all his students followed on the ‘same tracks’. On following exactly the ‘footprints’ of great predecessors, see Lucian, Rh.Pr. 8.3 and 9.7, on which see last Cribiore 2007b. See also Herm. 29.7, concerning students’ imitation of philosophers. Aristides too used this expression to indicate the emulation of someone superior, e.g. Or. 46.15 Dindorf.

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(Or. 1.23). When in his youth he studied rhetoric in Athens, he was happy to maintain some independence and not be tied to a specific teacher since in that case his eloquence would have been too close to that of an individual he did not esteem. The classic writers were the only ones who deserved to be imitated, and no doubt Libanius considered Aristides one of them. I am not going to linger on Oration 64, which has been the object of recent attention. It suffices to say that here Libanius evokes in detail Aristides’ lines of argument so that scholars have tried to reconstruct the main points of the latter’s speech Against the Dancers. In fact, far from opposing the views of hypothetical opponents as he does in most of his speeches, Libanius responds directly to his predecessor in a relentless debate, saying that as a Syrian he could not stay silent. While he had declared that ‘speaking in opposition (ντιλ γειν) to what Aristides had said’ had to be considered a way of paying homage to him, the reader cannot help but feel that in the encounter Libanius is victorious and caused his opponent ‘to retire silenced’ as it happened many times when he confronted others. Even though the precise date of Or. 64 is not necessarily 361, its style, the sanguine disposition of Libanius, and the lack of those themes that will become prevalent in his maturity make it likely that he did not compose it many years later. Other orations, all relatively early, in which some imitation of Aristides is evident are Or. 11, the Antiochicus, Or. 61, the Monody for Nicomedia, and Or. 5, the Hymn to Artemis. After the 360s, direct references to Aristides disappear from Libanius’ letters, and this reinforces the impression that the rhetor’s influence on him had waned. The argument from Libanius’ correspondence is quite weak, since his letters survive from only two distinct periods: the vast majority is from the first ten years of his activity in Antioch, 355–365, and the rest from 388 to 393. That there is no mention of Aristides in the letters of the second period is hardly significant.27 But besides that, Norman argued that in later years ‘the style and outlook of Libanius were not consciously influenced’ by his previous emulation of Aristides.28 In saying that, this scholar was specifically rejecting a suggestion of Roger

27 The question is similar to that of the continuous friendship or breach of relations between Libanius and Themistius, see Dagron 1968, 38. 28 Norman 1953, 22, who admitted only his unconscious emulation of Aristides’ neurotic aspects. See, however, in Norman 2000, 183–184 the introduction to Or. 3, which was written after the edition of Martin 1988.

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Pack (Libanius has a similar chronological framework, similar references to medical matters, and his tutelary divinity Tyche might stand for Asclepius’ pronoia).29 In addition, Pack noted the similarity between the greeting of the emperor Julian to Libanius in the Autobiography and the greeting of Marcus Aurelius to Aristides, as related by Philostratus. Pack therefore suggested that Libanius, in the first part of the narrative of his life written in 374, deliberately imitated Aristides’ Sacred Tales, a contention that Norman rejected.30 Although it seems doubtful that the two works correspond so precisely, I think that Aristides was still very much in Libanius’ mind when he wrote in 374. A passage in the Autobiography is a good example of deliberate imitation. When Libanius was granted a leave from Constantinople in 353 to spend some time in Antioch after many years of absence, he returned to his native city in triumph, at least as he says.31 The passionate and frenzied account of it, which he wrote down twenty years later (Or. 1.86–89), has the texture of a literary dream and is strongly reminiscent of Sacred Tales 5.30–34, where Aristides narrated his triumphant arrival in Smyrna to declaim in 167.32 After Aristides entered the city and was well received, he heard of a little Egyptian orator, an ν&ρωπ!σκος, who had corrupted some of the councilors and had burst uninvited into the theater. At that point Aristides had a dream, so vivid that he doubted whether it was a vision or reality, in which he saw himself proclaiming that he was going to declaim in the early morning. He went to the city hall and did so: Despite my unexpected appearance and the fact that many people failed to know about it, the council was so packed that one could not see anything except men’s heads, and it would have been impossible to get back one’s hand if it were inserted anywhere between the people. And the shouting and good will—or rather, if we must tell the truth—the frenzy on all sides was such that no one was seen to sit either during the introduction or when I arose to contend, but from my first word they Pack 1947, 19–20. See Pack 1947. Norman 1953 argued that Libanius was imitating Philostratus himself. Swain 2004, 368–373, rejected the idea of the closeness of the autobiography and the hieroi logoi but saw a similarity in Libanius’ and Aristides’ views that rhetoric and Greek religion were connected. 31 On the dokimasia, the test that usually awaited students as they left school, see Cribiore 2007a, 84–88. 32 Cf. Behr 1968, 105 and note 34 (where he tentatively identifies the ‘little Egyptian’ rhetor with Ptolemy of Naucratis as in Philostratus, VS 596) and 307, where he connects it with the dream in Sacred Tales 1.22. 29 30

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After this triumphant performance, which of course Aristides disclosed only to render honor to Asclepius, he went to the baths and was told that the Egyptian orator had declaimed a few days before but only a few people had attended, even though he had publicized his lecture well. Like Aristides’, Libanius’ declamation did not need promotion or individual invitations since people ran to the oratorical display as soon as they heard his name. Before daylight, they packed the city hall, which for the first time appeared inadequate so that when I inquired if anyone had turned up, my slave told me that some had even slept there (Or. 1.87).

Introduced by his uncle, Libanius then entered, smiling and full of confidence, and won over his audience immediately. He rejoiced seeing the audience as Achilles was glad at the sight of his armor. How could I adequately describe the tears they shed at my introduction, which many learned by heart before leaving, and their frenzy at the rest of my oration? Everyone, even the elderly, the naturally lethargic, and the sick, jumped up in enthusiasm and did all kinds of things. Those who found it hard to stand up because of gout also stood up, and when I tried to get them seated, proclaimed that my speech did not allow them to and kept on interrupting it with clamorous demands that the emperor restore me to my city. They did this until they stopped from mere exhaustion and then turned to my speech and declared blessed both themselves and me (Or. 1.88–89).

After his fellow citizens quieted down, Libanius, reveling in his success, proceeded to the baths whither many escorted him, wanting to touch him. In this section, Libanius twice invoked his tutelary deity, Tyche, who allowed him to disprove the adage that ‘a prophet is not honored in his own country’. Then, immediately after this ecstatic account of his success, Libanius introduces his own ‘little Egyptian’, the Phoenician rhetor Acacius, who was one of his rivals.33 The two passages in which Aristides and Libanius narrated their respective triumphs are not identical, since a proficient emulation did 33

Acacius 6 in PLRE I.

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not engender a perfectly similar product, but they show many parallels: the lack of advertisement for the lecture, the packed hall, the audience standing up from the beginning, the shouts and clamor, the complimentary words to the speaker, who was even followed to the baths, and the existence of a rival rhetor. More particularly, the two narratives share the tone of Bacchic frenzy, which Libanius called βακχε!α and Aristides ν&ουσιασμς. This is not the usual mood of Libanius’ prose, which tends to have a more matter-of-fact character. Libanius also appropriated Aristides’ passage by filling it out with lifelike details that end up sounding slightly humorous, such as those old, slow, sick, and gouty people jumping up in acclamation. One could object that sophistic displays generally aroused similar reactions, but analogous narrations in Philostratus and Eunapius are not so exactly comparable. Norman found a parallel to the Libanius episode in Philostratus’ sketch of Polemon, yet the two narratives have little in common besides the confidence of the speakers.34 Libanius must have found Aristides’ words truly rousing and adapted them to his own needs, producing a slightly surreal narration that stands out in his Autobiography. Was he reading Aristides closely as he had done in previous years? It is difficult to know since he must have assimilated passages he found particularly inspiring. In his late years, when he had so many axes to grind against the Latin language, Roman law, the crisis of Greek rhetoric, and the apathy of his students, Libanius turned again to his predecessor for some comfort. When, after 387, he composed Oration 3, To his Students about his Speech, he tacitly appealed to Aristides, who in 166 had written Oration 33, To Those who Criticize him Because he does not Declaim. While Libanius’ imitation of Aristides is more attenuated than before, this late attempt to vie with him was evident enough that the scribe of one manuscript of Oration 3 gave it the same title as Aristides’ speech.35 Silence is at the center of both speeches. Orations are often born out of silence. At the beginning, a speaker bursts out, saying that silence is unacceptable and he must break it on some issue.36 Silence then is followed by λγος, which naturally derives from it. In this case silence becomes the λγος itself, as Aristides and Libanius compose a speech to Norman 1965, 171 and 1992, 152, Philostratus, VS 537. Martin 1988, 85, manuscript D. 36 Most orations of Libanius use this initial theme. On the topos of the ‘tranquil speaker’ in the classical period, see Montiglio 2000, 118. 34 35

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explain the reasons for their refusal to declaim, and silence turns into censure (πιτ!μησις) of their audience’s disinterest.37 Aristides declines to humor his distant audience, who reproach him for his inactivity and ask for a speech: his argument is that they do not deserve one and that he does not need anything else to enhance his reputation. Yet this oration, which he sends to his distant admirers through the agency of a friend leaving for Smyrna, and which he calls ‘not a pleasant speech’, is his answer to their remonstrations. Libanius is equally exasperated by the complaints of his students who desire the speech at the end of the school year that he refuses to give it on account of their bad behavior. Aristides uses Oration 33 as a propemptikon, a speech for the departure of a friend. His audience is remote, although he feigns to address it as if it were at hand, and he remarks on the absence of a real public, including foreigners, before whom his addressees might feel some shame. This lack injects some artificiality into his indictment. As he defends himself and attacks the apathy and reprobate habits of his accusers, he considers his position unassailable and shows condescension, detachment, and supreme confidence. Like other professionals (doctors, carpenters, craftsmen), he does not feel the obligation to advertise his products and to make them acceptable. It is his audience that is supposed to woo him; orators would waste their resources by trying to assemble a group of listeners. He is not in the least responsible for their disinterest, since he is the λγος itself. His literary production is abundant and impeccable and is the fruit of his accomplished education and of his unfailing devotion to the art. No doubt Libanius could identify with this portrait of the orator. At this point of the speech, Aristides directs his attention to his public, those ‘false lovers’ (δυσ ρωτες) who proclaim that ‘he is the best of the Greeks’, and yet neglect him and spend their time at the swimming pools. Everyone hastens there, pursuing pleasure and unable to recognize what is truly valuable. They neglect ‘the first of the Greeks’, and their education is compromised. The reasons why Aristides’ speech attracted Libanius can be found not only throughout Oration 3, in which he vied with him to a degree, but also in everything that made Libanius a man and a rhetor. Notwithstanding their different circumstances, both speeches focused on education and on the audience’s refusal to be educated despite much protestation of love and commitment. An old sophist in the fourth century,

37

See Aristides, Or. 33.34.

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who was disappointed by the tepid response to a profession which he felt had gone awry, found some comfort in commiserating with ‘the best of the Greeks’. Yet Libanius was in a worse predicament than Aristides, and this is what gives his words the authentic grief that seems to be absent from the work of his predecessor. Aristides’ honor (δξα) was not compromised by his refusal to write one more speech. He declared that he had survived his difficulties (health and everything else) ‘by clinging to our raft like a kind of Odysseus’ (18) and felt above criticism. At the beginning of Oration 3, Libanius says that his determination to be silent jeopardizes the δξα of his students, since their punishment will be evident to everybody, as will their poor performance.38 At the end, he reiterates more forcefully that they will incur utter shame when they will be expelled ‘from the holy rites of oratory for defiling the haunt of the Muses’.39 Yet one cannot but feel that it is the teacher’s honor that is irremediably compromised for failing to attract the attention of his pupils and for his inability to adapt to the changed times. Aristides’ remoteness and isolation from his audience is not confined to this speech. While in Oration 34, Against those who Burlesque the Mysteries, he declared that the beauty of oratory had ‘the power to enchant the audience’ (26), he continued by saying that he had never pronounced a syllable to gratify one. The underlining message of Or. 2, In Defense of Oratory, was that the pleasure of engaging in the art was an end in itself.40 Attention to the audience made a speech plunge downwards so that words lost their feverish intensity.41 Libanius, who while still totally enamored of rhetoric, seems to have lost some of his competitive edge in the second part of his life, must have found some support in these words. The sole aim of an orator was writing the best possible speech, but—said Aristides—oratory in its most perfect form was very hard to find. ‘Just as lions and all the nobler animals are naturally rarer than the others’, orators worthy of the name were uncommon (Or. 2.425). The force of Aristides was the conviction that he was a lion. An audience, however, was crucial to Libanius the teacher. His Autobiography is often a chronicle of his triumphs as a declaimer, but in his late years especially he delivered some of his orations to a restricted 38 I interpret the term δξα in this way, while Martin 1988, 275, followed by Norman 2000, 185 n. 2, view it as the honor students gain in supporting their teacher. 39 Or. 3.1 and 35. 40 See Or. 2.429–437, Dindorf 1829, 145–148; cf. Behr 1994, 1165–1168. 41 Cf. Or. 28.115.

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circle of friends.42 All his work, however, is evidence of his profound commitment to teaching and reaching his students, of his attachment to these foster children, and commensurate pride in seeing them fly away.43 Their nonchalant attitude and disinterest stung him deeply. Or. 3 is an indictment of their shortcomings, but the message to his students that underlies the whole is: ‘you neglect me, desert me, are not loyal to me, do not memorize my words, hate me, and even delight in my distress’—some exaggeration perhaps, and yet a refrain that pervades all his late production. Aristides felt detached because his audience was more impersonal and remote and he could pretend it did not exist. Undoubtedly Libanius had more power over his listeners since he could expel delinquent students, as he contemplates doing at the end of the speech (Or. 3.33–37). Immediately after, though, his power crumbles as he realizes that he couldn’t possibly diminish his ‘flock’ because his ‘command’ (ρχ) would be compromised, and the bad students would pass to the ‘enemy’, that is, to rival teachers.44 He also has to retain them on account of their fathers, a realistic reason which nevertheless seems to refer to the remark of Aristides that his listeners behaved like the sons of famous men who, aware of their good birth, could afford to misbehave.45 I am not convinced that Oration 3, which is pervaded with biting acrimony, represents (as it is generally assumed) the formal speech that Libanius gave at the end of the course, an oration that might be attended by governors and other officials, by citizens of Antioch, and particularly by the students’ parents.46 Oration 3, which discloses the students’ shortcomings together with their teacher’s dwindling authority, is a bitter speech even though it is occasionally sprinkled with the dry humor that pervades some of Libanius’ work. It probably appealed to an audience of students.47 Libanius declared in another oration that his students experienced his humor and that he was accustomed to mix fun

42 Petit 1956b is right in this, but in my view wrongly argues that Libanius kept his most controversial speeches in his drawers. 43 See Cribiore 2007a. 44 On his constant preoccupation with the size of his school, see Cribiore 2007a, 96. 45 See Aristides, Or. 33.24. 46 See Martin 1988, 83–86, and Norman 2000, 183–184. 47 Even though the speech is quite rhetorical, Libanius needed to show his students all rhetorical embellishments for didactic reasons. Eunapius, VS 16.2.2, 496, regarded humor as one of the features of his prose, cf. Cribiore 2007a, 19–22. Molloy 1996, 105, disagrees with Eunapius and does not recognize Libanius’ wit.

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and work in the class.48 When he laments that his boys’ escapades waste the money for their tuition, he deliberately uses the masculine Homeric word αOδο!οις (respectable people) in the neuter form to mean ‘sex’, possibly a school joke.49 Likewise, his depiction of the young men gingerly appearing in class with the slow gait of ‘brides or tight-rope walkers’, ‘picking their noses with either hand’, spoiling the applause, deliberately walking around during the oration, and openly inviting classmates to the baths is a tour de force on students’ misbehavior, which parents might fail to really appreciate (Or. 54.11–14). The remark on the pleasure of going to the baths even before dinner—a true indulgence— takes the reader back to Aristides, who faulted people’s passion for the baths as the principal cause that made them miss his lectures.50 In his view, the baths are ‘what darkens the beauty of education’. Yet in Aristides the mention of people anointed with oil, the Homeric references such as the Sirens’ song ‘come and stop your ship’,51 the man with his palm fan who lures the spectators away, are not as vivid as the corresponding vignettes in Libanius. When Aristides says that everyone runs to bathe in the river Meles because the sophists considered as the greatest quality of Homer that he was the river’s son, the attempt at humor is weak (Or. 33.29). While one of the themes of Or. 33 is education, Aristides’ audience was not made up specifically of students. In Or. 29, Concerning the Prohibition of Comedy, he reclaimed for the orator the role of educator that traditionally appertained to the poet and manifested some concern for the environment in which young people matured. I would like to consider once more his role as teacher to clarify only a few points. That he was not engaged in this profession on a regular basis and did not have a school is evident from the question of his immunity from civil service as it appears in the Sacred Tales.52 In this work Aristides occasionally mentions students, but these are either those he is advised to have if he looks for an exemption, or young men who offered themselves as students when he went to Smyrna in 167, an offer he may not have accepted.53 When he refers to students, he generally uses the See Or. 2.20. Heath 2004, 186–187, remarked on ancient teachers’ jocularity. Od. 15.373, Libanius, Or. 3.6; cf. Martin 1988, 277. 50 Or. 33.25–32. Of course the baths are a constant presence in the Sacred Tales but are used for medical reasons. 51 Od. 12.184–185. 52 See Behr 1968, 77–84. 53 See Sacred Tales 4.87; 4.95; 5.29; and 5.57, a dream. 48 49

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term ‘young men’ (ν οι) and once employs the word μα&ητα!.54 He also once uses the adjective γν,ριμος in combination with ν οι to say that ‘the most competent young men’ wished to study with him (Sacred Tales 5.29). Philostratus relates that Aristides asked Marcus Aurelius for permission to have his γν,ριμοι present so that they could cheer for him at the declamation, and the word is usually translated as ‘students’ (VS 583). I am not convinced that gn¯orimoi were always the students in the inner circle of a teacher, as has been argued in a recent book.55 Philostratus is not always consistent in using the term, and in Aristides it only has the meaning ‘friend or known person’.56 It seems likely that when Aristides asked the emperor to allow his followers to be in the audience, the latter were friends and people who admired him and were in his retinue, not necessarily his students or only students.57 In Or. 33.23 Aristides sheds some light on his role as a teacher. ‘To those who were eager to meet with me on a private basis I offered myself not only as I declaimed, but I also indicated to them well how in my opinion they would become somewhat better’. He uses the expression Oδ!>α συνεναι, that is, ‘to meet privately’ (probably in his or in his student’s residence), which contrasts with Libanius’ expression ξω συνεναι, ‘to meet students at school’ (Ep. 1038.1). Aristides considered his declamations models for instruction and occasionally met some young men to correct their rhetorical imperfections. His involvement with teaching was probably not very significant and did not leave a profound mark on him. The nineteenth -century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, who studied Aristides in his youth, reported an amusing adespoton epigram which may have referred to a namesake of the renowned rhetor: ‘Hail to you seven pupils of the rhetor Aristides, four walls and three benches!’58 This epigram in any case may have been realistic if it alluded to Aristides having a school. Two other orations are usually taken to show that Aristides had some involvement with teaching. In 147 he wrote Or. 30, the Birthday Speech to Apellas, who, the scholion explains, was his pupil.59 Very little, however, 54

This usage is compatible with Libanius’ terminology. Watts 2006, 31. 56 See, e.g., Philostratus, VS 483.25 with the meaning ‘friend’, and Aristides, Sacred Tales 1.23 and 4.23, besides 5.29. 57 Philostratus, however, may have believed they were students. 58 See App.Anth. 5.31; Prolegomena to the Panathenaic Oration Dindorf 1829, 741; Cugnoni 1878, 54; Tommasi Moreschini 2004, 11–12 and 269. 59 On this scholion, see Behr 1981, 390 n. 2. 55

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indicates that this boy was indeed his student. In the phrase ‘We, your relations, kinsmen, teachers, companions, and all of your dear family’, the word ‘teacher’ does not necessarily refer to the orator. The speech is a conventional and artificial presentation of the city’s and the family’s glory and of the accomplishments of the young man. When he composed it, Aristides had just emerged from a nearly two-year period of incubation in the temple of Asclepius, so that his acquaintance with Apellas must have been quite recent. Years later, in 161, he wrote Or. 31, The Funeral Oration for Eteoneus, a young man who apparently studied with him. Aristides seems to have been more involved in this youth’s upbringing. And yet one perceives that some remarks may be out of place. A vain Aristides seems to be in competition with his student, as when he says that Eteoneus was so devoted to him that he never even conceived of being at his level (Or. 31.7–8). In a speech concerned with the study of rhetoric, the boy’s silence—sometimes considered a positive quality in antiquity60— nevertheless occupies too much space in the background of the effusiveness of his teacher.61 The insistence on Eteoneus’ handsomeness (four remarks in such a small compass) also sounds a bit excessive.62 When the orator says that in studying and declaiming Eteoneus used gestures that would be appropriate in a painting, one cannot agree more: the silent Eteoneus belongs in a painting (Or. 31.8). Aristides, the masterful orator, appears at the end in a grand, emotional consolation that Libanius, if he knew the passage, cannot have failed to appreciate, as when Eteoneus is compared to ‘a poet who has ended his play while people still desire to see him and hear him’.63 If we now return to the question I posed at the beginning, many of the reasons why Aristides appealed so strongly to Libanius, and implicitly to other rhetors in the fourth century, are already clear. In the fourth century, when rhetoric was not as effective as before and rhetors had lost some of their power, it was comforting to remember an age when ‘rhetoric flashed like lightning’.64 Aristides was a shining protagonist of that age, and applying his rhetorical rules reinforced the illusion that one could revive it. For Libanius, moreover, rhetoric and Cf. Or. 2. 384–385. On silence, Or. 31. 8 and 10. 62 On this boy’s beauty, Or. 31.4, 11, 12, and 15. 63 The ¯ethopoiia of the deus ex machina pronouncing words of consolation is quite moving. 64 See Libanius, Or. 2.43. 60 61

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the worship of the gods were connected not only because, as he told the emperor Julian, ‘rhetoric moved you towards reverence for the gods’, but also because Aristides’ conception of oratory inspired by ‘a sacred and divine fire’ stirred him.65 Aristides powerfully roused the emotions, and his authoritative tone and confidence in his own ability strongly attracted a sophist who doubted he could make a comparable impact. So what was Libanius reading under Aristides’ portrait? So many are the words of his predecessor that may have appealed to him, but we know with certainty that he identified with Aristides declaring his love for rhetoric in Or. 33.19–20: Alone of all the Greeks whom we know, we did not engage in oratory for wealth, fame, honor, marriage, power, or any acquisition… But since we were its true lovers, we were fittingly honored by oratory… For me oratory means everything, signifies everything, for I have made it children, parents, work, relaxation and all else.

Libanius was under the same spell.

65 See Libanius, Or. 13.1; Aristides, Or. 28.110, and, e.g., the myth of Prometheus in 2.396–399. Cf. Swain 2004, 372–373.

chapter fourteen AELIUS ARISTIDES’ RECEPTION AT BYZANTIUM: THE CASE OF ARETHAS

Luana Quattrocelli Non posso sapere se lo sono o no. Voglio dire che lo sciamano è un messo celeste: fa da intermediario tra Dio e gli uomini. Perché la malattia non è altro che un’offesa all’ordine cosmico. Dio abbandona l’uomo, si allontana da lui… e allora interviene la malattia— Sándor Márai, La sorella

In addition to providing much interesting material for the history of religion and rhetoric, the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides offer a starting point for understanding the success of the author among his contemporaries.1 In these six orations, while talking about his oratorical performances, Aristides refers more than once to his universal reputation (Or. 47.50; Or. 50.8, 19, 26), to the delirious enthusiasm of the crowds (Or. 50.20, 48, 101; Or. 51.16, 29, 32–33), to insistent requests from friends and acquaintances to write and deliver speeches (Or. 47.2, 64; Or. 48.1–2; Or. 50.17, 24, 95; Or. 51.30), and to the high esteem that bestowed on by the emperors (Or. 47.23, 36–38, 41, 46–49; Or. 50.75–76, 92). All of these remarks, however, would appear to contradict the need that Aristides felt to write an entire oration, To Those Who Criticize Him Because He Does Not Declaim (Πρ8ς το?ς αOτιωμ νους @τι μ" μελετF,η), in order to complain bitterly about the scant interest in attending his performances that people showed. One may wonder if Aristides’ long absences from the rhetorical scene were really due to the poor condition of his health and to the orders given by Asclepius, or if, instead, all of these reasons were only excuses designed to hide the reality of fickle success. Besides, it should not be forgotten that a panoramic view of

1 I would like to thank Professor William Harris for giving me the opportunity to present this paper before such an important audience.

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Greek rhetoric in those years would have included the works of great professionals of the calibre of Polemon, Herodes Atticus, and Apollonius Tyanensis. Although Aristides made a great display of his success, he often worried about the judgement of posterity. In a dream, he replies to a doctor who is insisting that he recite something: ‘Because, by Zeus, it is more important for me to revise some things which I have written. For I must also converse with posterity’ (Or. 51.52).2 He writes elsewhere: ‘After the inscription, I became much more eager, and it seemed in every way to be fitting to keep on with oratory, as our name would live even among future men, since the god happened to have called our speeches “everlasting” ’ (Or. 50.47). Posterity has indeed paid Aristides all the honours of which he dreamt while he was alive. Among the late Imperial Age rhetoricians, Aelius Aristides is the only author whose oeuvre has been handed down nearly complete: fifty-two orations (only the beginning of Or. 53 is preserved).3 The survival of Aristides’ corpus was due to the great admiration that rhetoricians in later centuries had for him, as well as to the high position reserved for him in schools and in scriptoria. If in the third century Apsines, Longinus, and Menander Rhetor already considered Aristides to be a classical author and quoted him as a model for style and composition, in the fourth century Aristides was often studied and imitated in lieu of the classical authors themselves. Libanius (314– 393 AD) shows himself a true devotee of Aristides, imitating him just as Aristides had once imitated Demosthenes. And Himerius (300/10– 380/90 AD), a representative of the Asiatic style, which was very different from Libanius’s Atticism, does not neglect to acknowledge Aristides as one of his masters, especially in the Panathenaicus. As Libanius’s pupils, even two church fathers of this period, Basil and John Chrysostomus, took Aristides as a model, as did all the Christian authors whose rhetorical style was deeply influenced by the Second Sophistic. Even a fourth-century papyrus,4 containing a rhetorician’s funeral oration, celebrates Aristides as Smyrna’s second son after Homer.

2 All translations of the Sacred Tales are by C.A. Behr; the text used is Keil 1898. Translations of the scholia are my own, with the assistance of David Ratzan. 3 F. Robert is preparing an edition of the fragments and the lost works of Aelius Aristides as part of the ‘Aristides Programme’, which will result in an edition of the complete works under the direction of L. Pernot (CUF, Les Belles Lettres). 4 Berliner Klassikertexte V, 1, 1907, 82–83. See Schubart 1918, 143–144.

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In the following century Synesius, who had no love for the sophists, accorded Aristides the same fame. The fame achieved in these centuries, sealed by Eunapius (who calls him ‘divine’), allowed Aristides and his orations to acquire first-class authority with lexicographers, the authors of rhetorical manuals, commentators, and erudite schools from the sixth century through the Byzantine period. At the end of the thirteenth century, Maximus Planudes was still making scribes copy a specimen of Aristides’ orations in his scriptorium for his library,5 and Theodorus Metochites wrote an essay On Demosthenes and Aristides.6 But even though Aristides escaped unharmed from the hostile attacks of Christian authors like Romanus Melodus, who had no scruples about mocking pagan authors like Homer, Plato and Demosthenes in his Hymns, he could not avoid the scorn of one tenth-century commentator, who attacked his personality as it emerges in the pages of the most autobiographical of his orations, namely the Sacred Tales. I am referring to the scathing notes written in the margins of the sheets of the manuscript Laurentianus 60, 3, (A) to the Sacred Tales, as a personal commentary on Aristides’ religious experiences. The commentary includes a series of notes, never published,7 which, lying outside the exegetical-grammatical typology of medieval comments, represent a genuine attack by a Byzantine author on a pagan one. Manuscript A, which is divided into two parts, Laurentianus 60, 3 and Parisinus graecus 2951, is the well-known manuscript of the Aristidean tradition that belonged to Arethas, the famous archbishop of Caesarea who read and commented on a number of pagan authors. The manuscript was prepared around 920 AD for Arethas by John Calligraphus,8 undoubtedly after Arethas had become archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia.9 Arethas himself (see fig. 1) added the titles, the capital letters, and the paragraph signs. He also wrote scholia in his neat majuscule,10 modifying the Sopater scholia and supplementing 5

See Quattrocelli (forthcoming). See Pernot 2006, 100–115. 7 Except for two cases that were edited by Dindorf in the scholiastic corpus (1829, III, 343–344). A complete edition of these notes will become an integral part of the Sacred Tales edition being prepared by L. Pernot and L. Quattrocelli for Les Belles Lettres. 8 See Keil 1898, vii; Behr–Lenz 1976–1980, xxvii n. 79; Lemerle 1971, 220 n. 52; Pernot 1981, 183. 9 Cf. Behr–Lenz, xxvii, n. 80. 10 Maass (1884, 764) speaks about the semiunciales solemnes used by Arethas for the scholia: ‘Ecce Arethas, quippe qui praeter solemnes scholiorum semiunciales non in sacris tantum verum etiam in profanis utitur uncialibus’. 6

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Fig. 1

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Fig. 2

them with additions to which he occasionally attached his monogram ΑΡΕΘ.11 These scholia cover Orations I–IV and some passages of μελ ται. In addition, one can read small notes to Orations XVII–LIII. That the reproachful notes in the margin to the Sacred Tales were also written by Arethas is proven above all by the handwriting, which faithfully imitates the unmistakable majuscule of Caesarea’s archbishop.12 The most characteristic letters are easily recognizable (see fig. 2): – alpha: with the rounded part that slips into the line space to distinguish itself from delta. – delta: in majuscule form. – epsilon: crescent-shaped. – kappa: more frequently in the majuscule form than in the minuscule one. – mu: sometimes enriched by an ornament. – nu: which alternates between the minuscule form and the majuscule one, sometimes inclined on the right. – the compendium for κα!. 11 12

On the personal notes added by Arethas, see Lenz 1964a, 58, 71–72, 84. Maass (1884, 758) was already certain of Arethas’s authorship of the notes.

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Arethas’s matrix is evident even in the arrangement of the note text as an inverted pyramid or in the shape of a funnel, closed with a little leaf or a small wavy line. Once the handwriting has been securely identified as Arethas’s, it is difficult to doubt that the ideas expressed are also his own, rather than copied from notes in other manuscripts. That the notes were copied is highly unlikely for two reasons: first, no copyist would have ever transcribed such extensive comments into his own copy, even if he had read them in the antigraph; second, and most importantly, there is a large repertoire of attacks in the same tone that Arethas addresses to other classical authors, enough to make Wilson speak of ‘the characteristic style’ of Arethas’s notes on other authors (1983, 212). Therefore, even the unedited notes to Manuscript A should be included among the other short polemical and scornful comments with which Arethas glossed the texts preserved in the manuscripts he owned. It is true that, like Photius, the philologist of Patras belongs to the period of the Byzantine culture commonly referred to as the ‘Renaissance’, which followed the Iconoclastic period. It is also true that, like Photius, Arethas made a career in the church, eventually becoming the archbishop in Cappadocia. However, if Photius provides an example of the tolerance shown towards the pagan literature of the past by the men occupying the highest offices of the church, this is not the case with Arethas. Those who deal with the Platonic textual tradition know the codex Clarkianus 39 very well: it contains twenty-four Platonic dialogues, that is, all of them except the Timaeus, the Republic, and the Laws. It was commissioned from John Calligraphus by Arethas while he was still deacon in November, 895 AD. In this manuscript, too, Arethas writes scholia in his own hand, and he adds strictly personal evaluations to them from time to time. Here is the passage from the Apology in which Socrates defends himself against the charge of atheism: εO δ’ α` οJ δα!μονες &ε.ν παδ ς εOσιν ν&οι τιν4ς D κ νυμφ.ν D *κ τινων λλων pν δ" κα0 λ γονται, τ!ς #ν ν&ρ,πων &ε.ν μ4ν παδας Tγοτο εBναι, &εο?ς δ4 μ; -μο!ως γ ρ #ν τοπον ε$η Sσπερ #ν ε$ τις jππων μ4ν παδας Tγοτο D κα0 'νων, το?ς Tμινους, jππους δ4 κα0 'νους μ" Tγοτο εBναι (Pl.

Apol. 27d–e).

If on the other hand these supernatural beings are bastard children of the gods by nymphs or other mothers, as they are reputed to be, who in the world would believe in the children of gods and not in the

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gods themselves? It would be as ridiculous as to believe in the young of horses or donkeys and not in horses and donkeys themselves. (trans. H. Tredennick).

Arethas glosses the text in this way: ‘you do well, Socrates, to compare the Athenians’ gods to donkeys and horses’. Obviously, Socrates has not done this, but the note gives us a glimpse of Arethas’s lack of philosophical subtlety and familiarizes us with one of his characteristic habits, namely that of conversing with his authors in a confidential and intentionally irreverent tone. For the scholiast from Patras, the text that he is reading is not just a monument of the past: the ancient author comes to life in front of him, provoking his likes and dislikes depending on his mood at that moment. A sort of dialogue opens up between the reader and the author. Arethas addresses the author directly, both to blame him and to express pleasure when he finds that he is in agreement with him.13 Socrates is again the target of Arethas’s sharp tongue in the Charmides. Our Christian reader comments on the description of the philosopher, who is struck by Charmides’ beauty in the Athenian palaestra, and thus gains the opportunity to reflect at length on σωφροσνη,14 in this way: ‘be cursed, Plato, for so cunningly corrupting simple souls’.15 At a later point, he goes to the heart of the philosophical discussion to defend Charmides and to attack Socrates once again:16 Socrates, you are deceiving the noble Charmides with your speeches and confusing him with sophistry. Because even if he has not shown adequate temperance (σωφροσνη), he was not in conflict with the truth. It is at least a part of temperance to act in a quiet and orderly way; for by quiet I mean non-violent, but you take it as the equivalent of lazy, and of course you spoil the reasoning.17

Since Arethas has no scruples about being so irreverent towards Socrates’ auctoritas, we should not be surprised that he behaves similarly, See Bidez 1934, 396. Pl. Chrm. 155d. 15 Arethas lashes out against Lucian for a pederastic issue (Sch. in Luciani Amores 54): μο0 μ4ν ο[τω παιδεραστεν γ νοιτο κτλ.], describing him as πKρατος: μγις ποτ , μιαρ4 κα0 πKρατε, τ8 σαυτο ξεπας. ξ,λης κα0 προ,λης γ νοιο. (‘With much hesitation you admitted this about yourself, you damned scoundrel! May you be utterly destroyed!’). A previous passage in the same work (Amores 35) had irritated Arethas’s sensitivity about the issue of male homosexuality: the Byzantine reader calls Lucian μιαρολγος, an adjective not found in the classical vocabulary. 16 Pl. Chrm.159a–c. 17 On this passage, see Lemerle 1971, 213–214; Wilson 1983, 206. 13 14

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if not more irreverently, towards another late-imperial author, namely Lucian. Lucian had already been the target of insulting epithets from the first Christian authors: in the ancient and medieval scholia to Lucian, the editor Rabe has registered no less than thirty-nine contemptuous terms used against him.18 Arethas readily adds his voice to the chorus of reprobation directed against Lucian, who nevertheless lived on among the favourite authors of Byzantine readers. Leafing through the comments on Lucian’s works, one realizes that of thirtynine spiteful allocutions, as many as fourteen can be read in the notes written by Arethas’s hand in the margins of the codex Harleianus 5694 (tenth century—E), and another thirty such epithets can be found in the three manuscripts (Vindob. gr. 123, eleventh century—B; Coisl. gr. 345, tenth century – C; Pal. gr. 73, thirteenth century—R), in which Rabe has identified scholia that can be ascribed to Arethas. Generally, Lucian is blamed for his jokes about Greek religion and philosophy, for his hyperbolic attacks against individuals, and for his presumed pederasty. In the dialogue Hermotimus, or Concerning the Sects (=Ερμτιμος D περ0 ΑJρ σεων) Lycinus, that is to say Lucian, is explaining to Hermotimus why no philosophical school can guide man in the quest for truth: ΛΥΚ. κατ τα%τ το!νυν :παντες μ4ν οJ φιλοσοφοντες τ"ν ε%δαιμον!αν ζητοσιν -πον τ! στιν, κα0 λ γουσιν λλος λλο τι α%τ"ν εBναι, - μ4ν Tδονν, - δ4 τ8 καλν, - δ4 @σα 5τερK φασι περ0 α%τ7ς. εOκ8ς μ4ν ο`ν κα0 τοτων 5ν τι εBναι τ8 εNδαιμον, ο%κ πεικ8ς δ4 κα0 λλο τι παρ’ α%τ πKντα. κα0 ο!καμεν Tμες νKπαλιν D χρ7ν, πρ0ν τ"ν ρχ"ν εXρεν, πε!γεσ&αι πρ8ς τ8 τ λος. *δει δ4 μοι πρτερον φανερ8ν γεν σ&αι @τι *γνωσται τλη&4ς κα0 πKντως *χει τις α%τ8 εOδcς τ.ν φιλοσοφοντων. εBτα μετ τοτο τ8 \ξ7ς #ν _ν ζητ7σαι, Fp πειστ ον στ!ν. ΕΡΜ. Sστε, { Λυκνε, τοτο φς, @τι ο%δ’ #ν δι πKσης φιλοσοφ!ας χωρσωμεν, ο%δ4 ττε πKντως 5ξομεν τλη&4ς εXρεν. (66)

LUC: In the same way, all philosophers are investigating the nature of Happiness; they get different answers, one Pleasure, another Goodness, and so through the list. It is probable that Happiness is one of these; but it is also not improbable that it is something else altogether. We seem to have reversed the proper procedure, and hurried on to the end before we had found the beginning. I suppose we ought first to have ascertained that the truth has actually been discovered, and that some philosopher or other has it, and only then to have gone on to the next question, which of them is to be believed. 18

They are listed in Rabe 1906, 336. See also Baldwin 1980–1981.

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HERM: So that, even if we go all through all philosophy, we shall have no certainty of finding the truth even then; that is what you say (trans. H W. and F.G. Fowler).

At this point, that is, at Hermotimus’s τλη&4ς εXρεν, the Christian orthodoxy in Arethas objects:19 jνα κα0 ε[ρMη, τ!ς sν εXρσει, βδελυρ,τατε, ν&ρωπος Wν; κα0 τ!ς τοτFω πιστεσει, τ7ς ν&ρ,που φσεως κατ σ4 ο%δ’ @λως χοσης τ8 κεκριμ νον κα0 διKπταιστον;

To discover it (sc. the truth), who, oh despicable person, will find it while he is still alive, since he is a man? Who, instead, will believe in this, since human nature, according to you, does not have the capacity for judgement and for not making errors?

Arethas uses the adjective βδελυρ,τατος, which Lucian often used against his rival in Pseudologistes, or the Mistaken Critic (Ψευδολογιστ"ς D Περ0 τ7ς ΑποφρKδος).20 If the convicia against Lucian reveal both the failure on Arethas’s part to acknowledge the pagan author’s irony and his habit of excessively literal interpretation,21 the mood is different in the notes written in the margin of the Sacred Tales in the Laurentianus 60, 3, whose content, in my view, confirms their attribution to Arethas. In the first note on the left margin of f. 36v, we read: λλ τ! τατης *δει τ7ς τοσατης κα0 νηντου πραγματε!ας, Αριστε!δη; κα0 τ7ς τοσατης το χρνου τριβ7ς; κα0 τ7ς φασματ,δους Pνειρ,ξεως; εO δναμις Xπ7ν τF. &εF. σου ΑσκληπιF., ξKντη σε νσου κα&ιστAν κα0 ν βραχει>A καιρο <οπM7 @περ *ργον &εο )ς τ παρ’ Tμν *χει &εα τ.ν νσων φυγαδευτρια. Z ο% κα0 ανοτοις τοτο σαφ4ς )ς T παρολκ" τ7ς Xγε!ας τ"ν φσιν στ0ν πισκοποντος* \αυτ"ν οOκονομοσαν κα0 πρ8ς Xγεαν ναφ ρουσαν, μηνοντος δ4 τατα, λλ’ ο%κ νεργοντος τ"ν τ.ν λυποντων παλλαγν; ε0 σ? συνιδεν ο%κ *χων τKχα συγκKμνοντος το λογισμο τF. σ,ματι, λρους ναπλKττεις μακρο?ς κα0 φKσματα φασμKτων εOς κμπον ποτελευτ.ντα κεν8ν Pδντων.22

* κα0 ναμ νοντος. What is the need, Aristides, of such a never-ending business? Of such a waste of time? Of dreaming hallucination? If the power to make you free 19 This note appears only in the Lucian manuscript Harleianus 5694 (E), written by the scribe Baanes (text) with scholia and marginal notes by Arethas. We are thus here right in front of one of Arethas’s notes. See Rabe 1906, 14–17, 244. 20 Lucian, Pseudologistes 3, 19. See Baldwin 1980–1981, 223. 21 See Baldwin 1980–1981, 233. 22 See the formulaic expression in Hom. Il. 11.417 and 12.149.

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luana quattrocelli from disease resided in your god Asclepius, and that in the blink of an eye being the work of a god? So among us there are divine ‘cities of refuge’ from diseases. Or, is it not clear even to the foolish that a delay of [the return to] health is characteristic of the man who observes (and so waits) that nature manages itself and returns to health of its own accord, and in declaring such a view does not act in order to deliver himself from those things which grieve him? But you, who are never able to see, perhaps because your reason suffers along with your body, you invent heaps of nonsense and ghosts of ghosts that produce only the empty gnashing of teeth.

We are here in the second half of the first Sacred Tale (Or. 47.54– 56). Aristides, after listing a great number of dreams, visions, diseases, and medical cures, pauses to relate the umpteenth strange strategy that Asclepius used to order him to fast. In this case, it is a question of poisoned figs, fortune-tellers, sanctuary doctors and phlebotomies, between Smyrna and Pergamum. The argument in this note is repeated in the margins of the third Sacred Tale: κενεαυχ"ς ν&ρωπος ξ γαν κουφτητος jνα μ" κα0 μπληξ!αν λ γω.

(f. 54v, ad 47.43)

A vainglorious man in consequence of his excessive levity, so that I am not talking stupidity.

It appears again in the margins of the fourth: οOηματ!ας ν&ρωπος κα0 κομπορρμων κα0 περιαυτολγοςk τ δ4 πKντα κ κοφης γν,μης κα0 χανου. φ’ pν κα0 T π ραντος α[τη α%τF. Pνεριπολεσχ!α (f. 62v, ad 50.48).

A conceited person and a boaster and always talking about himself: all of this comes from a weak wit and from vanity. From this it comes to him even this boundless talking in dreams.

In more recent times, Giacomo Leopardi, at the age of sixteen, wrote of the Sacred Tales: ‘Dopo aver letto tutto ciò, la persona saggia non può sottrarsi, a causa del cieco egocentrismo dell’autore, ad una sensazione di nausea’.23 In light of the judgement of such a sensitive and learned mind, Arethas’s lack of restraint in his criticism of Arstides appears less objectionable. Certainly, it is true that before the strange ravings of the Sacred Tales, the learned Archbishop from Caesarea would have

23

Leopardi 1878, 43–80. See also Tommasi Moreschini 2005.

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read on the same codex models of rare and irreproachable sophistic expertise in the more typically rhetorical orations (Orations I–XV Keil), where there is almost no trace of diseases, dreams, and the cult of Asclepius. As a Christian Arethas must have been uneasy about the title =Ιερο0 λγοι, Sacred Tales, which echoed his Sacred Scriptures too much. When he then had to associate such an elevated title with content that would have been completely improper in relation to the concept of sacredness upheld by the Christian orthodoxy, Arethas could no longer refrain from reprobation, albeit administered in small doses of ironical comments, annoyed reactions, concise judgements, and true contumelies. Later on he says: $δε μβροντησ!αν κα0 μπληξ!αν ν&ρ,που κα0 τατα δξαι σοφο.24 (f. 44r;

ad 48.41)

Look at the stupidity and the rashness—and such things are the opinions of a wise man.

A bit later still, Arethas has the following opinion about an enema to which Aristides submits in order to purify his liver: καλ.ς γε τοτο μνον εOσελ&8ν, )ς #ν ποκα&KρMη τ"ν φαντασιοκοποσαν κπρον, κα0 πρ8ς τ8 φρονεν τε κα0 σωφρονεν παναχ&ε!ης εO κα0 μδε ο[τω25 τF. δ οντι μετεγ νου (f. 44v, ad 48.43).

This is the only good thing that has come into his mind, that he might purify the dung that overworks his imagination and that you might be returned to your mind and your senses although you have not come back to this condition at the point when it was necessary.

In the other notes the tone continues to alternate between insulting epithets and scornful irony, resulting in some cases, as in the one just seen, in unexpected vulgarity in a church man and a scholar like Arethas. Soon after, Arethas mocks even the dietary remedies adopted by Aristides: δελφνιον σ&!ων κα0 χην8ς rπαρ—τ πεπττατα—βολου τ8ν στμαχον ε%ρωστεν; Tδ?ς εB26 (f. 44v, but the reference is ad 48.43).

Eating delphynion and goose liver—by far the most indigestible food—did you want to strengthen your stomach? How ingenuous!

24 25 26

Dindorf (1829, III,343) here adds an *χοντος that is not in the original text. Dindorf (1829, II,344) writes 'ντως. Cf. Pl. Gorg. 491e: )ς Tδ?ς εB (‘how foolish you are’!).

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In his aversion to our pagan author, Arethas goes so far as to exploit the exaggerated irony in his own comments, which ridicule Aristides’ quite unusual pronouncements. What Aristides had in fact said (Or. 48.43) was that when he was at death’s door, after an encouraging apparition of the goddess Athena, he decided to administer to himself an enema of Attic honey in order to purify his bile: κα0 μετ τατα rκεν OKματα κα0 τροφα!k πρ.τον μ4ν rπαρ, οBμαι, χην8ς μετ τ"ν πολλ"ν πρρησιν πρ8ς :παντα τ σιτ!α, *πειτα Xε!ου τι Xπογαστρ!ου. (Or. 48.43).

And after this came curatives and nourishment. First, I think, goose liver after frequent refusal of all food. Then some sausage.

The Greek text, then, mentions rπαρ χην8ς and Xε!ου τι Xπογαστρ!ου. In his comments on δελφνιον κα0 χην8ς rπαρ, Arethas, who was evidently in the dark about dietary habits and pharmacopoeia in the second century, deliberately distorts the foods prescribed with escalating irony. The ‘some sausage’ (Xε!ου τι Xπογαστρ!ου) appears to Arethas quite curious and out of place: it has become the vulgar δελφνιον, which is probably the diminutive of δελφς, δελφος (vulva, uterus). Given the harshness of Arethas’s censure, it is not surprising that Aristides is also called a ‘terrible drunkard’: )ς *οικεν οOνοπτης δειν8ς Αριστε!δης (f. 53v, ad Or. 49.32). In this case, the commentator shows that he has fully understood the Greek author’s references (Or. 49.32): @σον μ4ν ο`ν τινα χρνον δινεγκα τ"ν Xδροποσ!αν, ο%δ4 τοτο *χω λ γειν, @τι δ’ ε%κλως τε κα0 <>αδ!ως, αOε! πως πρτερον δυσχερα!νων τ8 [δωρ κα0 ναυτι.ν. )ς δ4 κα0 τοτο λελειτοργητο, το μ4ν [δατος φ!ησ! με, ο$νου δ4 *ταξεν μ τρον, κα0 _ν γε τ8 <7μα ‘Tμ!να βασιλικ’· γν,ριμον δπου @τι *φραζεν Tμικοτλιον. χρ,μην τοτFω κα0 ο[τως Zρκει )ς ο%κ Zρκει πρτερον τ8 διπλKσιον, *στιν δ’ @τε κα0 φειδομ νFω Xπ8 το δεδι ναι μ μ τι λυπM7 περι7ν. ο% μ"ν τοτ γε ποιομην ξα!ρετον εOς τ"ν Xστερα!αν, λλ’ ξ ρχ7ς *δει τF. μ τρFω στ ργειν. πε0 δ4 κα0 τατην εBχε τ"ν περαν, φ!ησιν Zδη π!νειν πρ8ς ξουσ!αν, οXτωσ! πως χαριεντισKμενος, @τι μKταιοι τ.ν ν&ρ,πων εBεν @σοι τ.ν Jκαν.ν ε%ποροντες μ" τολμ.σιν λευ& ρως χρ7σ&αι.

I also cannot say for how long I endured water drinking, but it was easy and pleasant, although before I always found water somehow disagreeable and disgusting. When this duty also had been performed, he took me off water, and assigned me a measure of wine. The word was ‘a demiroyal’. It is quite clear that he meant a half pint. I used this, and it sufficed, as formerly twice the amount did not. Sometimes there was even some wine left over, since I was sparing through fear that it might be harmful. Nor did I add this residue to the next day, but I had to be con-

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tent anew with the measure. When he had also made this experiment, he permitted me to drink as much as I wished, and made some sort of joke, to the effect that they are foolish men who are rich in material goods and do not dare to use them freely.

Aristides speaks about Tμικοτλιον, that is to say, a ‘half kotyle’, in referring to the amount of wine assigned to him by the god. If the quantity of wine permitted by Asclepius was so limited, the quantity of wine that Aristides regularly drank prior to his disease must have been more excessive—hence Arethas refers to him as a ‘terrible drunkard’ (οOνοπτης δεινς). Even if we are simply observing Arethas’s usual behaviour here, as the notes to Plato and Lucian suggest, his comments on Aristides’ Sacred Tales have a peculiarity of their own. It is as if in the face of these orations Arethas developed a veritable intolerance of the classical author. While his aversion to what he read in Plato or in Lucian grew out of his cultural context, with the Sacred Tales he engages in a polemic of a religious nature. He is no longer confronting Plato’s obvious paganism or Lucian’s alleged atheism; rather, he is confronting a true rival of Christianity. Insofar as Aristides is devoted to one god alone, albeit a pagan one, he becomes an imitator of Christian monotheism for our Byzantine commentator. What appears most hateful about Aristides is his representation of Asclepius as precisely the kind of god that Arethas’s God is for the Christians: a god of redemption, who sees everything, knows his believers, and does everything necessary for their salvation. If we are to understand Arethas and ‘his’ Aristides, we cannot lose sight of two aspects of the Sacred Tales. First, we must consider the image of Asclepius. The god is usually invoked as ‘the Saviour’ (- Σωτρ): he is a god who loves his devoted suppliant Aristides and intervenes directly to secure his salvation, a god who achieves miracles for him and through him. Second, with respect to Aelius Aristides, we should note the Aristidean triangle patient-god-tales that begins to emerge in the Sacred Tales as a self-conscious reworking of the Hippocratic triangle patient-disease-doctor.27 Without an addressee, Aristides’ experience would be interesting only as a religious-mystical event, though a privileged and in some respects extreme one. Aristides’ choice to communicate that experience by giving it a literary form, however, confirms the

27

See Pernot 2002, 371.

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validity of his experience and its successful outcome. Through being recounted in the Sacred Tales, Aristides’ spiritual experience participates in the ‘biological’ cycle proper to an orthodox religious experience, a cycle made up of: 1) the god’s choice of the beloved believer; 2) the personal experience of divine power; 3) the celebration of the greatness of the god himself through a direct testimony before others, regardless of whether they, too, are followers. It is evident that the representation of Asclepius as a savior god, together with the religious testimony that Aristides offers in the Sacred Tales, makes the secondcentury pagan orator dangerous for a defender of the Christian faith. From this perspective we can more easily understand the reason for Arethas’s virulent attacks on Aristides in the margins to the Sacred Tales, attacks that, as one might expect, are absent from the margins to Aristides’ other orations. It is because of his deep-seated aversion that Arethas directs his irreverent contempt not only against Aelius Aristides and his travails, but also against Asclepius. We have already seen in the first note how ironic Arethas can be about Asclepius’ capacity to heal: εO δναμις Xπ7ν τF. &εF. σου ΑσκληπιF. ξKντη σε νσου κα&ιστAν …(if the power resides in your god Asclepius to make you free of your disease…). After reading the long account of the baths in the river and in the sea that Asclepius imposes on Aristides (Or. 48.52–55), Arethas comments in the same scornful and vexed tone: )ς *οικεν ντ0 χην8ς &ρματ! σοι κ χρητο, Αριστε!δη, - &αυμαστς σου &ε8ς Ασκληπι8ς τοσοτοις λυτρος σε διKγων. (f. 46r, ad 48.52–55)

It seems, Aristides, that instead of a goose your wonderful god Asclepius has made you his pet, amusing you with such baths!

The &αυμαστς σου, referring to Asclepius, and the &ρματ! σοι, directed at Aristides, show the self-satisfaction that Arethas derives from his displays of irony and contempt. One particularly striking detail of the scholia is the contrast between the quality of the prose of Aristides, who is the addressee of the convicia, and the stylistic level of Arethas’s own prose as the author of those convicia. Although the style of the Sacred Tales is certainly not one of the best examples of Aristidean Atticism—indeed, André Boulanger has spoken of their ‘naïveté profonde’ (1923, 348)—nevertheless it shines in comparison with the writing of the medieval commentator. Lacking in any rhetorical structuring or philological severity, Arethas’s phrasing is difficult and elliptical, obscure and careless.

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Despite Arethas’s ironic and contemptuous comments, Aelius Aristides retains his favored position in Byzantium. Few pagan authors have had their corpus of works so richly preserved in multiple manuscripts (232). In the eleventh century, not too long after the Archbishop of Caesarea wrote his harsh notes, Psellus, perhaps the most outstanding author of the Byzantine Middle Ages, registers his high esteem for Aristides’ eloquence by placing him next to Demosthenes. The greatest praise that Psellus has for Basil and Gregorius Nazianzenus consists of him stressing how much they recall Aristides, the first for the breadth of his argumentation, the second for the grace of his style. Aristides’ fame remains intact for centuries until we reach the scriptorium of Maximus Planudes, who made scribes copy both the weighty volumes containing Aristides’ entire œuvre and smaller manuscripts of selected orations, which were indispensable to the learned humanist’s studies. We are now at the beginning of the fourteenth century. For the eastern Renaissance, which first develops in this period, Aelius Aristides has definitively become one of the classics of Greek literature.

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INDEX Achilles, 1 Aelius Aristides, and Attic Greek, 34, 261, 264, 292; use of concept ‘barbarian’, 2, 93; and bathing, chapter VI passim, 109–111; and the body, 82–85, 89–91, 109–113, 131–132, 138, 140; and Byzantine authors, 281–293; and Christians, 100–101, 106– 107, 179, 200–201, 289, 291– 292; conceit of, 4–5, 263, 273; and contemporary medicine, 84–86, 104–106; detachment from civic life, 169–171, 182– 185; and ‘defilement’, 120–121; and divine inspiration, 94–95, 163–166; dreams of, 4, 83, 84– 85, 86–98, 103, 116–121, 127– 128, 129, 135–137, 139, 149–150, 164; ekphrasis by, 132–135, 142– 143; ‘figured speech’ in, 2, 185– 197; Greek identity of, 199; and the historians, 31–49, 203–216, 261–262; humour(lessness) of, 5; ‘hypochondria’ of, 4, 84; and ‘immunity’, 123; his journeys, 136–137, 139, 141; and landscape, Chapter VII passim; and myths, Chapter III passim; narcissism of, 3; compares self with Odysseus, 112, 138, 141; and Old Comedy, 261; and oratory, 45–46, 66, 123– 126, 130, 131, 136–137, 267–268, 277–278; and the pantomimes, Chapter IV passim; popularity of, 5, 280–281, 293; portraits of, 266– 267; and regeneration, 104–105, 107–108; religiosity of, 3–4, 82, 111–112, 131, 150, 178–185, 199– 201, 291–292; and the Roman Empire, 43–44, 47–48, 178–201,

204, 207, 246, 279; and sacrifice, 97–98; self-praise by, 160–167, 269–270, 279; sexuality of, 118; Stoic influence on, 204–205, 208– 210; as teacher of rhetoric, 275– 277 Oration I: 31–49, 191–193 Oration II: 16, 193–195, 273 Oration III: 16 Oration IV: 186–187 Oration V: 195–196 Orations XI–XV: 58 Oration XVI: 1–3, 16 Oration XXIII: 107 Oration XXIV: 238–248 Oration XXV: 218–237 Oration XXVI: 2–3, 47–48, 144, 145, 188–190, 203–216 Oration XXVII: 131–150 Oration XXVIII: 18–21, 160–163, 165–167, 187, 255 Oration XXIX: 275 Oration XXX: 276–277 Oration XXXI: 277 Oration XXXIII: 116, 119, 123– 127, 129–130, 187, 271, 272, 275–276, 279 Oration XXXIV: 60, 75, 273 Oration XXXVI: 141 Oration XXXVII: 255 Oration XL: 17 Oration XLII: 107 Oration XLV: 16 Orations XLVII–LII (Hieroi Logoi, Sacred Tales): 127, 130, 131, 135– 140 Oration XLVII: 81, 90, 91, 93, 95, 104–105, chapter VI passim, 178–180, 287–288 Oration XLVIII: 87–88, 98, 110– 112, 128, 164, 288

320

index

Oration XLIX: 106, 108, 288, 290 Oration L: 93, 95, 183–184, 164, 165, 280, 288 Oration LI: 96–97, 131, 135–138, 181, 269, 276, 280 Thersites (lost): 264–265 agonistic culture, 154, 166–167, 171, 218–219, 228–229, 232, 269–270 Alcaeus, 10 Alcman, 10–11 Alexander of Cotiaeum, 178 Alexander of Seleuceia, 256 alousia (abstention from bathing), 119–123, 125, 128, 130 Ammianus Marcellinus, 235 Anacreon, 13, 14 Antonine plague, 87, 126 Apollonius of Tyana, 122 Apsines, 185, 280 Archilochus, 11–12, 13–14, 15 Arethas, 279–293 Ariphron, 15 Aristophanes, 9, 261 Aristotle, 209, 211, 246 Artemidorus Daldianus, 76, 120–121, 122 Asclepieion at Pergamum, 108, 255, 259 Asclepius, 85–86, 90–91, 98–99, 101–104, 106–107, 117, 122, 131, 132, 137, 139, 140–141, 200, 292 Athenaeus, 12 ‘barbarians’, 2, 93, 96 Bakhtin, M.M., 153 Basil of Caesarea, 280, 293 bathing, 121–122: and see Aelius Aristides, alousia Boulanger, A., 293 Bowersock, G.W., 2, 3, 183 Bowie, E.L., 2 Byzantine Renaissance, 284–285 Celsus, 122 Christian rampages, 70 Cicero, 208, 209–210, 212, 215, 247 Claudius Aristocles, 258–260, 262

Commodus, 257 consolation orations, 218, 220, 235– 236 Cribiore, R., 2, 5 L. Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus, 260, 262 Cyzicus, 131–138 Damianus of Ephesus, 181 dancing, 60–61, 73–74; and see pantomimes death, 125–126 Demetrius Poliorcetes, 226–227 Demosthenes, 161, 264–265, 293 Dierkens, J., 118 Dindorf, G., 219 Dio of Prusa, 12–14, 51, 56, 154, 177, 200, 226, 228, 240, 242, 245–246 Diodorus Siculus, 246–247 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, 210 Dionysius Periegetes, 48 dreams, 89; and see Aelius Aristides dunamis (power), 34–37, 47 Epidaurian miracle tablets, 103 Eunapius, 271, 281 Ferrary, J.-L., 208 Fields, D., 3, 4–5 ‘figured speech’, 185–188; and see Aelius Aristides Foerster, R., 264 Fontanella, F., 3 Franco, C., 3 Freud, S., 89 Fronto, 237 Galen, 86, 106, 120, 121, 253 Gangloff, A., 51 Gellius, A., 229–230 Gkourogiannis, T.K., 9 Gotteland, S., 51 Gregory Nazianzenus, 293 Gregory of Nyssa, 100 Hadrian of Tyre, 72 Helen, 81–82, 91, 92, 94

index Henry, R., 254–255 Heracles myth, 51–52, 54, 56, 57–64 Hermogenes, 185, 197 Herodian, 76 Herodotus, 242 Herzog, R., 233 hieroscopy, 96–97 Himerius, 280 Holmes, B., 4 Homer, 1, 9, 81–82, 125, 265, 266, 275 homonoia, among Greek elites, 159– 160 imitation, 267 Imouthes-Asclepius, 102 Isocrates, 63, 66 Iulius Apolaustus, Ti., pantomime, 74–75 Iulius Iulianus, Ti., 259–260, 262 John Chrysostom, 280 Jones, C.P., 5, 219 Julian, 70 kairos, 169, 218, 244 Keil, B., 218–219, 221, 235 laudes urbium, 222, 226–228, 230 Leopardi, G., 276, 288 Libanius, 69–74, 76–77, 236, 263– 278, 280 local autonomy, 159–160, 171–172, 244–246, 248–249 Longinus, 17, 194, 280 Lucian, 49, 73–74, 177, 200, 230, 286–287 luxury, concern about, 122–123, 125 Marcus Aurelius, 135, 169, 179–182, 256–257, 276 Maximum Planudes, 281, 293 Maximus of Tyre, 14–15 Menander, 261 Menander Rhetor, 146–147, 280 Michenaud, G., 118

321

mixed constitutions, 211–212, 247 muthos, 51–57 national character, 33, 40 Neritus, 108 Norman, A. F., 268–269, 271 Odysseus, 81–82, 86, 91, 92, 94, 112 Oracula Sibyllina, 232 Pack, R., 268–269 Panaetius, 208–210, 247 pantomimes, Chapter IV passim Paris the pantomime, 72–73 parrhêsia, 162 Pausanias the periegete, 12, 146–147, 232, 237, 242 Pax Romana, 214–215 Pearcy, L., 97 periautologia, in public life, 152–155, Plutarch and, 155–160, Aristides and, 160–167 Pericles, 33, 36–37, 44–45 Pernot, L., 2, 3, 47, 216 Persian Empire, 204–207 philanthropia, 34, 38, 42 Philostratus, 15, 122, 181, 186, 200, 230, 258, 271, 276 Photios, 253–258, 260, 284 Phrynichos, 253–262 phthonos (envy), 159, 213–214 Pindar, 10, 16–18, 21, 262 Plato, 16, 59, 65, 124, 126, 129, 186, 188, 193–194, 211, 215, 284–285 Pliny the Elder, 226 Pliny the Younger, 233 Plutarch, 3, 4, 12, 44, 48, 122, 152– 160, 161, 168–170, 172, 194, 245, 246 poets, archaic, Chapter I passim Polybius, 203–216, 228, 246, 261 Posidonius, 210, 247 Prokonnesos, 133–134 Prometheus myth, 65–67 Psellus, 291 Pseudo-Dionysus of Halicarnassus, 186, 191, 197

322

index

Quattrocelli, L., 5 Quintilian, 186

Swain, S., 5 Synesius, 281

Rabe, H., 286 Rhodes, 218–249 Robert, L., 73, 74, 76, 228 Rome, 189–190, 215–216; and see Aelius Aristides Rutherford, I., 153, 169

Tacitus, 194, 198, 247 Telesphorus, 98, 109 Tennyson, A., 112 Terpander, 239 Theodorus Metochites, 281 Theodotus, 104 Thucydides, 31–49, 195, 197, 261 tragedy, 73–74

Said, S., 2 Sappho, 10, 13, 14, 15, 16 Satyrus, 106 Schmid, W., 219 Sedatus of Nicaea, 260 Seneca the Elder, 186 Sider, D., 20 Simonides, 11, 14, 18–19, 20, 21 Solon, 14, 20–21, 239 Socrates, 124, 129–130 Sophocles, 9 Sparta, 40, 71–72, 75–77 Stesichorus, 11, 13, 14, 15 Strabo, 48, 226, 229, 246

Vergil, 208 Verus, L., 135 Vologeses IV, 179–180 Xenophon, 261 Xenophon of Ephesus, 230 Watts, E., 276 Weiss, C., 118 Wilson, N.G., 284 Wissmann, J., 66

Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition publishes monographs by members of the Columbia University faculty and by former Columbia students. Its subjects are the following: Greek and Latin literature, ancient philosophy, Greek and Roman history, classical archaeology, and the classical tradition in its medieval, Renaissance and modern manifestations. 1. MONFASANI, J. Georg of Trebizond. A Biography and a Study of his Rhetoric and Logic. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04370 5 2. COULTER, J. The Literary Microcosm. Theories of Interpretation of the Later Neoplatonists. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04489 2 3. RIGINOS, A.S. Platonica. The Anecdotes concerning the Life and Writings of Plato. ISBN 90 04 04565 1 4. BAGNALL, R.S. The Administration of the Ptolemaic Possessions outside Egypt. 1976. ISBN 90 04 04490 6 5. KEULS, E. Plato and Greek Painting. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05395 6 6. SCHEIN, S.L. The Iambic Trimeter in Aeschylus and Sophocles. A Study in Metrical Form. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05949 0 7. O’SULLIVAN, T.D. The De Excidio of Gildas: Its Authenticity and Date. 1978. ISBN 90 04 05793 5 8. COHEN, S.J.D. Josephus in Galilee and Rome. His Vita and Development as a Historian. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05922 9 9. TARÁN, S.L. The Art of Variation in the Hellenistic Epigram. 1979. ISBN 90 04 05957 1 10. CAMERON, A.V. & J. HERRIN (eds.). Constantinople in the Early Eighth Century: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai. Introduction, Translation and Commentary. In conjunction with Al. Cameron, R. Cormack and Ch. Roueché. 1984. ISBN 90 04 07010 9 11. BRUNO, V.J. Hellenistic Painting Techniques. The Evidence of the Delos Fragments. 1985. ISBN 90 04 07159 8 12. WOOD, S. Roman Portrait Sculpture 217-260 A.D. The Transformation of an Artistic Tradition. 1986. ISBN 90 04 07282 9 13. BAGNALL, R.S. & W.V. HARRIS (eds.). Studies in Roman Law in Memory of A. Arthur Schiller. 1986. ISBN 90 04 07568 2 14. SACKS, R. The Traditional Phrase in Homer. Two Studies in Form, Meaning and Interpretation. 1987. ISBN 90 04 07862 2 15. BROWN, R.D. (ed.). Lucretius on Love and Sex. A Commentary on De Rerum Natura IV, 1030-1287 with Prolegomena, Text and Translation. 1987. ISBN 90 04 08512 2 16. KNOX, D. Ironia. Medieval and Renaissance Ideas about Irony. 1990. ISBN 90 04 08965 9 17. HANKINS, J. Plato in the Italian Renaissance. Reprint 1994. ISBN 90 04 10095 4 18. SCHWARTZ, S. Josephus and Judaean Politics. 1990. ISBN 90 04 09230 7 19. BARTMAN, E. Ancient Sculptural Copies in Miniature. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09532 2 20. DORCEY, P.F. The Cult of Silvanus. A Study in Roman Folk Religion. 1992. ISBN 90 04 09601 9 21. AUBERT, J.-J. Business Managers in Ancient Rome. A Social and Economic Study of Institores, 200 B.C.-A.D. 250. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10038 5 22. BILLOWS, R.A. Kings and Colonists. Aspects of Macedonian Imperialism. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10177 2 23. ROTH, J.P. The Logistics of the Roman Army at War (264 B.C. - A.D. 235). 1999. ISBN 90 04 11275 1 24. PHANG, S.E. The Marriage of Roman Soldiers (13 B.C. - A.D. 235). Law and Family in the Imperial Army. 2001 ISBN 90 04 12155 2

25. MARCONI, C. (ed.). Greek Vases: Images, Contexts and Controversies. Proceedings of the Conference sponsored by The Center for the Ancient Mediterranean at Columbia University, 23–24 March 2002. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13802 1 26. HARRIS, W.V. & G. RUFFINI (eds.). Ancient Alexandria between Egypt and Greece. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14105 7 27. HARRIS, W.V. (ed.). The Spread of Christianity in the First Four Centuries. Essays in Explanation. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14717 9 28. VOLK, K. & G.D. WILLIAMS (eds.). Seeing Seneca Whole. Perspectives on Philosophy, Poetry and Politics. 2006. ISBN-10: 90 04 15078 1, ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15078 2 29. HOLLANDER, D.B. Money in the Late Roman Republic. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15649 4 30. MARZANO, A. Roman Villas in Central Italy. A Social and Economic History. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16037 8 31. BAROLINI, T. & H. WAYNE STOREY (eds.). Petrarch and the Textual Origins of Interpretation. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16322 5 32. CICCOLELLA, F. Donati Graeci. Learning Greek in the Renaissance. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 16352 2 33. HARRIS, W.V. & B. HOLMES (eds.). Aelius Aristides between Greece, Rome, and the Gods. 2008. ISBN 978 90 04 17204 3

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