(G.) Anderson Lucian: theme and variation in the second Sophistic. (Mnemosyne, suppl., 41.) Leiden: Brill. 1976. Pp. xi + 211. Fl. 68.

1980 ◽  
Vol 100 ◽  
pp. 229-230
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hall
Keyword(s):  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Theme And Variation

Classical Conceptions of Visuality and Representation in John of Damascus' Defense of Holy Images1

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 284-308
Author(s):  
James A. Francis
Keyword(s):  
Violent Conflict ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Word And Image ◽  
John Of Damascus ◽  
History Of ◽  
Classical Culture ◽  
Common Era ◽  
Iconoclastic Controversy

The Defense of Holy Images by John of Damascus stands as the archetypal exposition of the Christian theology of images. Written at the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy, it has been mostly valued for its theological content and given scholarly short shrift as a narrowly focused polemic. The work is more than that. It presents a complex and profound explication of the nature of images and the phenomenon of representation, and is an important part of the “history of looking”in western culture. A long chain of visual conceptions connects classical Greek and Roman writers, such as Homer and Quintilian, to John: the living image, the interrelation of word and image, and image and memory, themes elaborated particularly in the Second Sophistic period of the early Common Era. For John to deploy this heritage so skillfully to the thorny problem of the place of images in Christianity, at the outbreak of a violent conflict that lasted a further 100 years after his writing, manifests an intellect and creativity that has not been sufficiently appreciated. The Defense of Holy Images, understood in this context, is another innovative synthesis of Christianity and classical culture produced by late antique Christian writers.

A Riddling Recipe?

Mnemosyne ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 593-615
Author(s):  
Floris Overduin
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Greek Literature ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Tone Of Voice ◽  
Detailed Interpretation

AbstractThis article provides a detailed interpretation and suggests a literary background for the brief (26 verses) elegiac recipe against colic (SH690), written by Philo of Tarsus in the first centuryAD. Although on one level it is a serious pharmacological prescription, on another level it is also a literary piece, concerned with a marked tone of voice, Homeric play, and general display ofpaideia. Particularly its play of substituting certain ingredients with mythological riddles is striking. Its appeal to both doctors and men of culture fits the intellectual pattern of the culture of the Second Sophistic. As a poetic hybrid it also plays on different genres inherited from the previous Hellenistic era. Moreover, it constitutes a telling example of the late subgenre of elegiac pharmacology, in an era in which elegiac had all but vanished from Greek literature.

Rhetors at the wedding

1979 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 104-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. A. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Fourth Century ◽  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
High Class ◽  
Main Motive ◽  
Greek Rhetoric ◽  
Early Byzantine

In Lucian's Symposium, one of the wedding guests is a philosopher and another is a grammatikos. The grammatikos provides a bad elegiac epithalamium; the philosopher, who is called Ion, improves the occasion with a speech in which he declares that pederasty offers the best way of life, and the system of communal wives, as recommended in Plato's Republic, is the next best thing.This fantasy, of course, tells us nothing about what went on at weddings. Lucian's main motive is literary parody, of Plutarch's Erotikos or something of the kind. But it may serve to recall something of which we have evidence enough in Greek rhetoric, namely the practice of delivering speeches of some literary pretention at high-class weddings. The educated classes of the cities of the eastern provinces evidently cherished this habit: a display of culture, as well as of wealth, was admired, and elaborate orations took their place, alongside abundance of food and wine, music and song, elaborately decorated bridal chambers and beds, as concomitants of a wedding that was to do both families credit. This is true of the period of the ‘Second Sophistic’, and of its fourth-century and early Byzantine continuations. How far the practice was common before, say, the Antonine age is much less clear.

Pausanias in Corinth: Burying Medea’s Children

Mnemosyne ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 569-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelle Abbenes
Keyword(s):  
Second Sophistic ◽  
Material Environment ◽  
New Tradition

The author discusses the tradition preserved in the scholia on Euripides’ Medea, namely that her children were buried in the sanctuary of Hera Akraia, comparing it with the statement of Pausanias, who claims to have seen a µνῆµα of Medea’s children in Corinth. He concludes that they are mutually exclusive. The sanctuary meant by the scholia must be that in Perachora, and by µνῆµα Pausanias definitely means ‘grave’. To solve the problem of having two graves for Medea’s children, he argues that the older, Euripidean tradition had been forgotten in Corinth in the 2nd century ad (due to the destruction of both Corinth and the sanctuary of Hera Akraia by Mummius in 146 bc) and that a new tradition with a new grave was invented. This kind of manipulation/reinterpretation of the material environment has its roots in the archaising tendency of the Second Sophistic.

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