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The Rhodian Oration Ascribed to Aelius Aristides

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

C. P. Jones
C. P. Jones
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

Among the works of Aelius Aristides is preserved one entitled the Rhodian ('Pοδιακ⋯ς, sc. λ⋯γος, no. 25) It concerns an earthquake which has recently struck the city of Rhodes, and since Keil's edition of 1898 it has usually been considered spurious.

The work reproduces a true speech, not something like an open letter: the clearest sign is when the author uses the deictic pronoun τοετ⋯, ‘this here’, of the place in which he is speaking (53). One question is best discussed at the outset, since later it will prove vital to the question of authenticity: does the speaker claim to have been in Rhodes at the moment of the earthquake? Keil assumed without argument that he does. He had clearly visited the city before the disaster as well as after it (4, 32), but despite the vividness of his descriptions he nowhere says that he was present, and this reticence surely implies that he was not; and if he had been it is odd that he should talk of ‘the actual climax of the thing that befell you’ (τ⋯ν ⋯κμ⋯ν αὐτ⋯ν το comflex περιστ⋯ντος πρ⋯γματος, 19), using the second person plural. I infer that the speaker had not been present, but gave the speech several months after the event (εἰςμ⋯νας, 28); in the last part of this paper I will argue that he is Aristides, stopping at Rhodes on his wayback from Egypt to Smyrna in or about 142.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , December 1990 , pp. 514 - 522
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1990

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References

1 When referring to individual works of Aristides without section numbers, I shall use ‘no.’; for his text I use the edition of C. A. Behr (Leiden, 1976–80) for nos. 1–16, that of B. Keil (Berlin, 1898) for nos. 17–53. For clarity I shall refer to no. 25 as the Rhodian, to no. 24, the Letter to the Rhodians on Concord, as the Letter on Concord. I have used the following special abbreviations: Behr, Aristides: Works ii = Behr, C. A., Aelius Aristides: The Complete Works ii (Leiden, 1981)Google Scholar; Behr, The Sacred Tales = Behr, C. A., Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales (Amsterdam, 1968)Google Scholar; Bull. ép. =J. and L. Robert, Bulletin épigraphique, appearing almost every year between 1938 and 1984 in REG (reprinted in 10 vols., Paris, 1972–1987); Pernot, Discours siciliens = Pernot, L., Les Discours siciliens d'Aelius Aristide (New York, 1981)Google Scholar; Robert, Documents = Robert, L., Documents d'Asie Mineure, BEFAR 239 bis (Paris, 1987)Google Scholar; Robert, ‘Séismes’ = Robert, L., ‘Stèle funéraire de Nicomédie et Séismes dans les Inscriptions’, BCH 102 (1978), 395–408CrossRefGoogle Scholar = Documents 91–104; Schmid, Atticismus ii = Schmid, W., Der Atticismus in seiner Hauptvertretern ii (Stuttgart, 1899)Google Scholar. All dates are A.D. unless otherwise indicated. This study would not have been possible without the index of Aristides made available by the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (Irvine), and Iam grateful to the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, where I had access to this index in the year 1986–7; when I refer in general terms to Aristides' practice (e.g. on 7), it should be assumed that my evidence is drawn from the TLG. I have also profited from the comments of a reader for CQ.

2 See below. Note also τοετοεσ⋯ (14), ταετησ⋯ (38).

3 Keil, p. 72 app., p. 87 app.

4 Most are collected by Magie, D., Roman Rule in Asia Minor (Princeton, 1950), ii. 1491–2Google Scholar; Robert, cf., ‘Séismes', p. 402Google Scholar n. 57 = Documents 98 n. 57. Note also the inscription honouring Antoninus Pius as σωτ⋯ρ κα⋯ κτ⋯στης of Rhodes, , Carratelli, G. Pugliese in Studi di antichità classica offerti a Emanuele Ciaceri (Genoa, Rome, Naples, Citta di Castello, 1940), 255Google Scholar; cf. Bull, ép. 1946/47.156.

5 TAM ii.905 (IGR iii.739), col. xiii, lines 48–60, cf. 72. For Saxa's tenure, Alföldy, G., Konsulat und Senatorenstand unter den Antoninen (Bonn, 1977), p. 257Google Scholar; cf. Wörrle, M., Stadt und Fest im kaiserzeitlichen Kleinasien (Munich, 1988), p. 38Google Scholar n. 94.

6 There seems no basis for Behr's assertion, Sacred Tales 16, that ‘Aristides delivered [to the Rhodian ambassadors and to the Alexandrians] a speech of consolation, which is no longer preserved’.

7 On the dates of Heliodorus' tenure, Bastianini, G., ZPE 17 (1975), p. 288Google Scholar, cf. 38 (1980), p. 81.

8 Return to Smyrna: inferred with good cause from the Hymn to Serapis (no. 45), which seems to have been delivered in Smyrna after Aristides' safe return from Egypt (Behr, Sacred Tales 21 n. 72). Aristides actually started out for the capital ‘from home’ (48.60), presumably from Hadrianoutherai. On the date, see below at n. 28.

9 For 142, Behr, , Sacred Tales 15Google Scholar n. 44, arguing against Magie's date, ‘as early as 139’.

10 Keil, apparatus on pp. 72, 79, 87, 91.

11 Rightly observed by Behr, , Sacred Tales 16Google Scholar n. 48. Keil comments on a different nuance, ‘at first’, in his apparatus to this very speech, 25.51 line 23.

12 Keil, , apparatus on p. 91Google Scholar.

13 Behr, , Aristides: Works ii. 371 n. 1Google Scholar.

14 Note also his allusion to the noise of the Egyptian cataracts, 25.25; Aristides visited these while in Egypt (36.46–52).

15 Homer: 30, 40, 45 (ο⋯ ποιητα⋯). Hesiod: 39. Pindar: 30, cf. 39.16 with Keil's apparatus.

16 Fr. 426 Lobel-Page; cf. below, on section 64.

17 οὐ π⋯τριον τῇ 'P⋯δῳ, 43; Wilamowitz apud Keil saw the reference to Dio Chrys. 2.59 = Page, Poetae Melici Graeci no. 856, οὐ γ⋯τριον τᾷ Σπ⋯ρτᾳ.

18 Sophocles: 16, cf. 28.11. Aristophanes: 17, cf. 33.5.

19 Pernot, , Discours siciliens, pp. 117–46Google Scholar; the quotation is from p. 145.

20 Gomme, and Sandbach, on Men. Samia 339Google Scholar.

21 Behr, , Aristides: Works ii. 371Google Scholar n. 1. Festugiere, A. J., REG 82 (1969), 148–9 = Études d'Histoire el de Philologie (Paris, 1975), 120–1Google Scholar.

22 Pernot, , Discours siciliens 139Google Scholar, citing this passage.

23 Schmid, , Atticismus ii. 64–5Google Scholar.

24 Cf. Puiggali, J., C&M 36 (1985), 123Google Scholar.

25 Aristides: Works ii.373 n. 47.

26 καταλ⋯ω: Robert, L. in L'Épigramme grecque, Entretiens Hardt 14 (Geneva, 1969), 221–2Google Scholar = Opera Minora Selecta vi.357–8; id., BCH 102 (1978), 539 n. 10 = Documents 235 n. 10. τ⋯νοι: Robert, , Hellenica 11/12 (1960), 344–9Google Scholar.

27 For the contrary view, Behr, , Aristides: Works ii. 371 n. 1Google Scholar.

28 For a convenient summary of Aristides' life, and for the date of the Roman Oration adopted here, see Klein, , Die Romrede des Aelius Aristides i (Darmstadt, 1981), pp. 71–90Google Scholar, esp. 76 n. 17; I previously favoured the date of 144 (JRS 62 [1972], p. 150 n. 159). I continue to believe, however, that Aristides delivered the speech To the King while making this visit.

29 The date of 155 assigned by Behr, (Sacred Tales 87 n. 91)Google Scholar is far from certain.

30 Behr, Cf., Sacred Tales 111–14Google Scholar; Birley, A. R., Marcus Aurelius 2 (London, 1987), 193–4Google Scholar, 205.

31 As Keil notes on 25.25, in 18.7 Aristides claims that the earthquake at Smyrna ‘has eclipsed the fall of Rhodes’.

32 Bousquet, J., REG 101 (1988), 12–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; text on pages 14–16; the lines cited are 74–6. On the historical context, Walbank, F. W., ZPE 76 (1989), 184–92Google Scholar; on the geography of Doris, , Rousset, Denis, BCH 113 (1989), 199–239Google Scholar.

33 Polyb. 5.88–90; the passage cited is 88.4 (Paton's translation, slightly modified). On this passage, Holleaux, M., Études d'épigraphie et d'histoire grecques i (Paris, 1938), pp. 445–62Google Scholar; Walbank, , A Historical Commentary on Polybius i (Oxford, 1957), pp. 616–22Google Scholar (note, however, that the Deigma mentioned by Polybius, 88.8, as a building of Rhodes has nothing to do with the use of this word in Arist. 25.53, where it means ‘sample’). On a misguided attempt to fix the date of this earthquake precisely in 228, Bull. ép. 1971.621, pp. 504, 507.

34 Robert, Cf., 'Séismes' 401Google Scholar = Documents 97, ‘l'intervention de l'empereur est attendue et normale’.

35 ᾡ χρ⋯ δοκεῖν εἶναι δι⋯ σποεδ⋯ς is ‘whom we must suppose to have at heart’, not ‘who should certainly decide apace’, as Behr, , Aristides: Works ii. 70Google Scholar.

36 Robert, , ‘Séismes’ 405–6Google Scholar = Documents 101–2; Balland, A., Fouilles de Xanthos vii: Inscriptions d'époque impériale du Létôon (Paris, 1981), pp. 193–4Google Scholar.

37 HA Gord. 26.1–2; Reynolds, J. M., Aphrodisias and Rome (London, 1982)Google Scholar no. 21 = Oliver, J. H., Greek Constitutions of Early Roman Emperors (Philadelphia, 1989)Google Scholar no. 281; cf. Bull, ép. 1983.382. On barn-raising, Adams, James T., ed., Dictionary of American History (New York, 1940), i.164 s.v.Google Scholar.

38 On the Panhellenion, see now Spawforth, A. J. and Walker, Susan, JRS 75 (1985), 78–104Google Scholar, 76 (1986), 88–105 (1985), pp. 79–81 on membership and 82–4 on activities.