Beyond the Second Sophistic. Tim Whitmarsh

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2013 by The Regents of the University of California

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Whitmarsh, Tim.

      Beyond the Second Sophistic : adventures in Greek postclassicism / Tim Whitmarsh.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27681-9(cloth, alk. paper) e–ISBN: 978-0-520-95702-2

      1. Greek literature—Rome—History and criticism. I. Title.

      PA3086.W55 2013

      880.9′001—dc232013002937

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      In keeping with its commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures Book, which contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z 39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

      CONTENTS

      Preface

      Acknowledgments

      Abbreviations

      Introduction: Beyond the Second Sophistic and into the Postclassical

      PART ONE. FICTION BEYOND THE CANON

      1.The “Invention of Fiction”

      2.The Romance of Genre

      3.Belief in Fiction: Euhemerus of Messene and the Sacred Inscription

      4.An I for an I: Reading Fictional Autobiography

      5.Metamorphoses of the Ass

      6.Addressing Power: Fictional Letters between Alexander and Darius

      7.Philostratus’s Heroicus: Fictions of Hellenism

      8.Mimesis and the Gendered Icon in Greek Theory and Fiction

      PART TWO. POETRY AND PROSE

      9.Greek Poets and Roman Patrons in the Late Republic and Early Empire

      10.The Cretan Lyre Paradox: Mesomedes, Hadrian, and the Poetics of Patronage

      11.Lucianic Paratragedy

      12.Quickening the Classics: The Politics of Prose in Roman Greece

      PART THREE. BEYOND THE GREEK SOPHISTIC

      13.Politics and Identity in Ezekiel’s Exagoge

      14.Adventures of the Solymoi

      References

      Index

      PREFACE

      This volume consists of ten substantially revised and updated essays and five previously unpublished. I am immensely grateful to the original editors and publishers, all of whom have graciously permitted republication. It would be tedious, even if it were possible, to list all who deserve thanks for shaping the ideas in here, but at the risk of invidious omission let me record that my ideas about the Second Sophistic and its limitations have been formatively shaped by discussions with Jaś Elsner, Simon Goldhill, Constanze Güthenke, Brooke Holmes, Richard Hunter, Larry Kim, Helen Morales, Dan Selden, and Froma Zeitlin. I owe a huge debt also to those who have offered me the opportunity for discussion of these ideas in variously inchoate forms, among them Eran Almagor, Alain Billault, Peter Bing, Barbara Borg, Bracht Branham, Jésus Carruesco, Honora Chapman, Katharine Earnshaw, Marco Fernandelli, Tom Habinek, Owen Hodkinson, Marko Marinčič, Emeline Marquis, Francesca Mestre, Teresa Morgan, Maren Niehoff, Michael Paschalis, Jim Porter, Jonathan Price, Tessa Rajak, Zuleika Rodgers, Kim Ryholt, Thomas Schmitz, Eva Subias, Ruth Webb, and Nicolas Wiater. My wonderful friends and colleagues at Corpus Christi College—Ewen Bowie, Ursula Coope, Jaś Elsner (again), Peter Haarer, Stephen Harrison, John Ma, Anna Marmodoro, Neil McLynn, and Tobias Reinhardt—have been an ever-present source of inspiration and advice both intellectual and practical during the shaping of this project. I am also indebted to a number of my former colleagues at the University of Exeter (where I worked for the years 2001–7), especially Chris Gill, Rebecca Langlands, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, and John Wilkins: without their support, tolerance of crude experimentation, and tough quizzing the ideas in this book would never have made it to this stage. Erich Gruen, Fergus Millar, Thomas Schmitz, and Stephanie West have saved me from various egregious misprisions, although others will surely remain. Special thanks to my amazingly patient and forgiving parents (Judy and Guy) and children (India and Soli); this book is for them all.

      All translations, unless otherwise indicated, are my own.

      ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

      The following chapters are revisions of previously published material; permission from the various publishers to revisit that material is gratefully acknowledged.

      Chapter 1, “The ‘Invention of Fiction,’ ” revised from “Prose Fiction,” in A Companion to Hellenistic Literature, edited by M. Cuypers and J. Clauss (Oxford: Blackwell, 2010), 395–411.

      Chapter 4, “An I for an I: Reading Fictional Autobiography,” revised from the article of the same name in Cento Pagine 3 (2009): 56–66 (available online at http://www2.units.it/musacamena/ iniziative/SCA2009_Withmarsh.pdf [sic]); appears in slightly different form in The Author’s Voice in Classical and Late Antiquity, edited by A. Marmodoro and J. Hill (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 233–47.

      Chapter 5, “Metamorphoses of the Ass,” revised from the chapter of the same name in Lucian of Samosata: Greek Writer and Roman Citizen, edited by F. Mestre and P. Gómez (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2010), 73–81.

      Chapter 6, “Addressing Power: Fictional Letters between Alexander and Darius,” revised from the chapter of the same name in Epistolary Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature, edited by O. Hodkinson, P. Rosenmeyer, and E. Bracke (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

      Chapter 7, “Philostratus’s Heroicus: Fictions of Hellenism,” revised from “Performing Heroics: Language, Landscape and Identity in Philostratus’ Heroicus,” in Philostratus, edited by E. Bowie and J. Elsner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 205–29.

      Chapter 8, “Mimesis and the Gendered Icon in Greek Theory and Fiction,” revised from “The Erotics of Mimēsis: Gendered Aesthetics in Greek Theory and Fiction,” in The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel, edited by M. Paschalis and S. Panayotakis (Groningen: Barkhuis, forthcoming).

      Chapter 9, “Greek Poets and Roman Patrons in the Late Republic and Early Empire” revised from “Greek Poets and Roman Patrons in the Late Republic and Early Empire: Crinagoras, Antipater, and Others on