This article reconsiders the methodological issues posed by the reception of archaic and classical poetry in imperial rhetorical texts. It argues that references to ancient poems and poets in the works of imperial sophists are always already the product of appropriation and rewriting, and that the study of sophists’ engagement with poetry should go beyond Quellenforschung to explore how and why poetic models were transformed in light of their new rhetorical and imperial contexts. To illustrate this approach and its contribution to our understanding of both ancient-reception phenomena and imperial rhetorical culture, the article focusses on Himerius of Athens, a fourth-century c.e. sophist and teacher of rhetoric whose fondness for lyric poetry has caused his Orations to be used as a quarry for lyric fragments and testimonia. Himerius’ treatment of carefully chosen lyric models is here discussed with attention to his self-presentation and rhetorical agenda to show how the sophist appropriated the voices of diverse lyric icons to promote his school and negotiate his position in relation to the imperial administration. This analysis restores Himerius’ intellectual significance within late imperial culture and society, but it also demonstrates how a more in-depth study of the reception of ancient poetry in imperial sophistic literature has the potential to illuminate the strategies of cultural politics used by imperial authors to (re)construct Greek tradition.
Taking issue with the Gorgias and its dismissal of fifth-century Athenian rhetoricians and statesmen, in his Reply to Plato in Defence of the Four (Or. 3) the imperial sophist Aelius Aristides finds himself dealing with Plato’s condemnation of New Music, which in the Gorgias had gone hand in hand with the censure of rhetoric. In a brilliant display of new musical ‘revisionism’ so far ignored by scholars, Aristides presents in a positive light the notorious new dithyrambist Philoxenus of Cythera, so that Plato’s influential criticism of New Music, and especially of its political implications, backfires. This paper provides a close analysis of Aristides’ new musical discussion, concentrating both on the sophist’s engagement with Platonic musical critique and on his use of anecdotal traditions about Philoxenus circulating under the Empire. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the history of New Music and its ancient, not always predictable, reception.
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