In a recent article in the journal Kernos (2018, 31: 39–58), Julia Kindt compared ancient Greek epiphanic and oracular narratives and rightly argued that although both epiphany and divination explore analogous issues of limited human cognition at the face of the divine, recent studies of divine epiphany (Verity Platt, Facing the Gods: Epiphany and Representation in Graeco-Roman Art, Literature and Religion, Cambridge University Press 2011, and Georgia Petridou, Divine Epiphany in Greek Literature and Culture, Oxford University Press 2015) tend to keep discussions of these religious phenomena separate. This chapter is an attempt to readdress this seeming imbalance by focusing more explicitly on complex self-conscious narratives pertaining to incubation (enkoimesis, kataklisis) in Imperial Pergamum, a religious practice that could be thought as offering an interesting intersection of divine epiphany and what Kindt calls ‘inspired divination’. More specifically, this paper focuses on the dynamics and problematics of diagnostic and therapeutic divination, as delineated in Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Discourses (Hieroi Logoi, Or. 47–52 Keil), Galen’s De curandi ratione per venae sectionem (4.23 = 11.314–315 K.), and contemporary epigraphic evidence from the temples of Asclepius in Pergamum and Epidaurus.

This chapter shows how declaimers (and sometimes audiences too) made use of declamation’s parade of characters with great creativity to claim and negotiate status and identity. The following examples are considered: Aristides' return to oratory after illness figured as Demosthenes returning to political life; the hesistant Heliodorus before Caracalla as Demosthenes before Philip; Megistias and Hippodromus sparring for status like warring magicians; the itinerant Alexander Clay-Plato as a nomadic Scythian; Polemo as Cynegirus and Callimachus at the Battle of Marathon, with the sophist's spectacular illness of the joints matching the grisly fates of the two heroes; and numerous other smaller examples. Finally, the ancient rhetorical concept of 'figured speech' is considered as a model for this sort of role-playing: it is argued that the major advantages are not so much literal safety as deniablity and greater impact.

This chapter looks at the broader contemporary significance of declamation, focusing on (Macedonian) imperialism, and taking as its major case study Aristides' To the Thebans: concerning the alliance I–II (Orr. 9–10), in which Aristides recreates Demosthenes' speech urging alliance between Thebes and Athens before Chaeronea. The image of an attack by a despotic and barbaric king echoed some presentations of the Parthian menace, potentially ennobling a contemporary conflict. But the image of the greedy despot also echoed discourses about 'bad' emperors, thereby offering a negative exemplum to heed. Finally, Macedon in these texts further recalls the Roman empire more generally: accordingly, these texts make available an unusually negative attitude to the empire, but also, I argue, a celebration and a justification of Rome's power over Greece. I compare the discourses present in a fragment of Pollux's declamation On the Islanders, where the Persian court recalls Lucian's denunciation of the vulgarity of rich Romans in his De mercede conductis. In closing, I note the particularly high number of potentially meta-exemplary remarks in Aristides' declamations, encouraging audiences to ponder these texts' meaning deeply.

Twenty-four declamations from the Greek imperial period, the work of six authors, survive today: a survey reveals that their authors were prominent in politics and culture on a local and often imperial level. Why did these elite men pour such energy into the classical role-play that was declamation? Further indices of the genre's importance are considered: the centrality of declamation to education in this period, the great outpouring of rhetorical theory, the sheer number of declaimers and declamations that we know of, and the distances that star performers travelled and the fees that they earned. Such an enquiry is urgent: declamation was very influential on other genres, and work here has fallen behind work elsewhere. But the most urgent reason is that the question of the relationship of classical past and imperial present is fundamental for all literature in this period, and indeed for this period’s wider culture. This book rejects traditional explanations of the genre in terms of nostalgia, and instead takes seriously the almost universal ancient belief that the past was useful for the present.

This chapter looks at declamations on conflicts between cities, taking as its primary case studies Aristides' On behalf of making peace with the Lacedaemonians (Or. 7), in which an Athenian urges his fellow countrymen to accept the Spartan offer of peace in 425, and On making peace with the Athenians (Or. 8), in which a Spartan speaks in favour of preserving Athens in 404. The issues in such declamations are often the same as those in contemporary disputes between cities (territorial disputes, tax and trade, titles), and even discussed using the same discourses (freedom and oppression, envy, concord). From its use in real political oratory, we may conclude that the lesson drawn from the Peloponnesian War as presented in declamation was above all to pursue concord and avoid strife, with contemporary conflicts made to seem trivial. But approaching what was clearly a sensitive issue at one remove makes the lesson more palatable, and dramatizing it in the form of a declamation more memorable; the most reflective audiences, noticing how the same discourses were used by either side, might have concluded that a little more humility was needed in future disputes.

In this chapter, I explore the aesthetic and cultural appeal of imperial Greek declamations that stage scenes of resistance, focussing on Polemo’s two declamations on the Battle of Marathon. I argue that in an era when ‘spectacular resistance’ (steadfast and ultimately in some sense triumphant resistance to oppression) was in vogue, as seen in the careers of figures such as Peregrinus the Cynic, Apollonius of Tyana, and early Christian martyrs, such declamations allowed elites to enjoy some of the glamour and rhetorical possibilities that spectacular resistance normally offered only to the powerless; there is a parallel here with the great play that Aelius Aristides and Polemo made of their struggles with illness. In particular, these declamations offered opportunities to indulge in the exuberant ‘Asian’ rhetorical style very fashionable at the time; moreover, artistic (rather than real) resistance allowed for the selection, full narration, and endless replay of the most attractive scenes. Finally, I suggest that the ‘controversial’ nature of the genre, in which counterarguments are always implied, and, in the case of Polemo’s duelling declamations, actually present, allowed Polemo simultaneously to present himself as in some degree superior to the trope of spectacular resistance.

Theodora Palaiologina Kantakouzene Raoulaina was a wealthy educated patron, a true bibliophile with a rich collection of books, among which her autograph Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 1899 holds a prominent place. Raoulaina copied forty-three out of the fifty-three works of Aelius Aristides, a highly popular orator in the Palaiologan period for the teaching of rhetoric. The manuscript was copied most probably before 8 October 1273 and was intended to be Raoulaina’s gift to future generations. This chapter paper offers the first edition of hitherto unedited scholia to Aristides’ two Platonic discourses, Ὑπὲρ Ῥητορικῆς Λόγος Α΄&Β΄.

This chapter examines the involvement of the Roman empire in administrating education in provincial cities during the High Empire, through regulation of exemption from tutelages. It uses the case of Aelius Aristides, who appealed against his own exemption being revoked. The chapter traces the various interests and forces which shaped provincial education both in the civic arena as well as in the imperial one.

This chapter examines the involvement of the Roman empire in administrating education in provincial cities during the High Empire, through regulation of exemption from tutelages. It uses the case of Aelius Aristides, who appealed against his own exemption being revoked. The chapter traces the various interests and forces which shaped provincial education both in the civic arena as well as in the imperial one.

As a famous representative of the Greek literary heritage, Sappho is both a source of tremendous literary meaning and recreation in the Imperial period, for e.g. Achilles Tatius and Longus, but at the same time an object of censure from Christian moralists, as in Tatian’s Oratio ad Graecos. Chapter 22 of The Cambridge Companion to Sappho discusses her transmission and reception as the ancient world began to change into a Christian one.

Chapter 20 of The Cambridge Companion to Sappho looks at Sappho’s significance for the rich poetic culture of the Hellenistic world, including Apollonius, Theocritus, and Posidippus, as a parallel development to the scholarly discourse surrounding the editing of her work during this period.