Table Of ContentSophistic Views of the Epic Past from
the Classical to the Imperial Age
i
Also available from Bloomsbury
Early Greek Philosophies of Nature, Andrew Gregory
Sophist Kings , Vernon L. Provencal
Sophrosune in the Greek Novel, Rachel Bird
ii
Sophistic Views of the Epic
Past from the Classical to the
Imperial Age
Edited by Paola Bassino and Nicol ò Benzi
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK
1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA
29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland
BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © Paola Bassino and Nicolò Benzi and contributors, 2022
Paola Bassino, Nicol ò Benzi and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Authors of this work.
Cover design: Terry Woodley
Cover image © The Building of the Trojan Horse by Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo
(1727–1804), oil on canvas, c.1760
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission
in writing from the publishers.
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any
third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book
were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any
inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist,
but can accept no responsibility for any such changes.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Bassino, Paola, 1983– editor. | Benzi, Nicolò, editor.
Title: Sophistic views of the epic past from the classical to the imperial age /
edited by Paola Bassino and Nicolò Benzi.
Description: New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifi ers: LCCN 2021018817 (print) | LCCN 2021018818 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350255760 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350255777 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350255784 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Sophists (Greek philosophy) | Epic poetry, Greek–History and criticism.
Classifi cation: LCC B288 .S656 2021 (print) | LCC B288 (ebook) | DDC 183/.1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018817
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021018818
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3502-5576-0
ePDF: 978-1-3502-5577-7
eBook: 978-1-3502-5578-4
T ypeset by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
To fi nd out more about our authors and books visit w ww.bloomsbury.com
and sign up for our n ewsletters .
iv
Contents
Notes on Contributors vi
Introduction Paola Bassino and Nicol ò Benzi 1
Part One Th e First Sophistic
1 Between Homer and Gorgias: Helen’s Bewitching Power
Roberta Ioli 19
2 Palamedes, Th e Sophistic Hero P aola Bassino 41
3 Ajax versus Odysseus H ugo Koning 65
4 Mythological Role-Playing among the Sophists
Kathryn A. Morgan 89
Part Two Th e Second Sophistic
5 Homeric Exegesis and Athetesis in Lucian’s Versions of the
Judgement of Paris Nicholas Wilshere 115
6 Helen Was Never Abducted, Paris Abducted Her Because
He Was Bored: Two Ways of Rewriting Homer in Dio
Chrysostom (Orr. 11 and 20) Sara Tirrito 143
7 Homer’s Lies and Dio’s Truth? Subverting the Epic Past in Dio
Chrysostom’s Trojan Oration Isidor Brodersen 165
8 A Rhetorical Trojan War: Philostratus’ Heroicus , the Power
of Language and the Construction of the Truth
Valentin Decloquement 187
9 Reading Homer and the Epic Cycle through E kphrasis :
Philostratus’ Epic Imagines A. Sophie Schoess 211
Index 237
v
Contributors
Paola Bassino is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies in the Department of
History at the University of Winchester. She has published articles on archaic
Greek epic and its reception, including on biographical representations of the
ancient Greek epic poets. She is the author of C ertamen Homeri et Hesiodi: A
Commentary (Berlin 2018) and co-editor of C onfl ict and Consensus in Early
Greek Hexameter Poetry (Cambridge 2017).
Nicol ò Benzi is Lecturer in Classical and Archaeological Studies in the
Department of Classical and Archaeological Studies at the University of Kent
Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Greek & Latin at UCL and in
the Department of Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology and Egyptology at the
University of Manchester. His research interests focus on the intersection
between philosophy and literature, in particular in Archaic and early Classical
Greece. He has published articles on early Greek philosophical poetry and its
relation to epic and lyric poetry.
Isidor Brodersen is Teaching and Research Assistant at the University of Duisburg-
Essen, Germany, where he is currently working on his PhD thesis on ‘Playing with
the Past in the Second Sophistic’. His research interests include Greek historiography,
humour and laughter in antiquity, intertextuality, and reception studies.
Valentin Decloquement holds a PhD degree in Ancient Greek literature from
the University of Lille (France), where he has been teaching since 2015. He wrote
a dissertation, defended in 2019 and entitled ‘Commenting on, criticizing and
rewriting Homer in Philostratus’ H eroikos ’, under the supervision of Ruth Webb
and the co-supervision of Kristoff el Demoen (Ghent, Belgium). He has published
articles on the Second Sophistic, rhetorical practices and Homeric criticism in
the fi rst to third centuries.
Roberta Ioli (MPhil in Classics, University of Cambridge, PhD in Philosophy,
University of Rome Tor Vergata) is Independent Researcher in Ancient
Philosophy and cooperates with the Department of Philosophy at the University
of Bologna. Her research interests mainly focus on Eleatic Philosophy, Sophistic,
vi
Contributors vii
Greek Epic and Tragedy. She has published on Scepticism, Presocratic Philosophy,
and the connections between Greek poetry and vocality. Her most recent books
are Gorgia. Testimonianze e frammenti (Rome 2013) and Il felice inganno. Poesia,
fi nzione e verit à nel mondo antico (Milan 2018).
Hugo Koning is a Teacher of Ancient Greek at the Classics Department of
Leiden University and at Stanislascollege in Delft . His research interests focus on
archaic epic, ancient reception and mythology. He is currently working with
Glenn Most on a collection and translation of ancient and Byzantine exegetical
texts on Hesiod’s Th eogony .
Kathryn A. Morgan is Professor of Classics at the University of California, Los
Angeles. Her research interests range broadly over Greek literature of the fi ft h
and fourth centuries bc , from Pindar, Greek lyric and Attic tragedy to Plato.
Recent articles and book chapters have focused on Simonides, Platonic
narratology and Platonic metaphor. Her most recent book, P indar and the
Construction of Syracusan Monarchy in the Fift h Century B.C. (Oxford 2015),
examines Pindar’s victory odes for Hieron of Syracuse and the programme of
tyrannical self-representation to which they contributed.
A. Sophie Schoess is Lecturer in Greek at the University of St Andrews. Her
research interests include the relationship between image and text in the Classical
world, and the reception of Classical myth from Late Antiquity through
Modernity. Her doctoral thesis (University of Oxford, 2018) traced the reception
of Ariadne’s myth in literature and the visual arts from antiquity through the
Renaissance. Her current research focuses on Christian interpretations and
appropriations of Classical myth in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Sara Tirrito is a PhD student in Classics at the Universities of Nantes and Turin.
Her research interests focus on Greek prose during the Imperial Age and in Late
Antiquity, especially Rhetorical Production and Public Speaking. She worked on
Aeneas of Gaza and she is currently working on Dio of Prusa’s speeches 18–21.
Her most recent article is ‘Nota all’Ep. XXV di Enea di Gaza’, R ET 6: 83–92.
Nicholas Wilshere is Assistant Professor in Greek and Latin in the Department
of Classics and Archaeology at the University of Nottingham. His research
interests are Lucian, ancient humour and the reception of Homer within
antiquity. He also teaches a wide variety of courses for the Leicester Adult Skills
and Learning Service.
viii
Introduction
Paola Bassino and Nicol ò Benzi
Th is volume aims to off er new insights on the relationships between two of the
main driving forces that shaped the intellectual discourse in the Greek world: the
epic tradition, which for centuries infl uenced all aspects of the intellectual and
everyday life of the Greeks, and the Sophists, who operated within – and
contributed to – new, changing cultural environments. We take a diachronic
perspective on the topic, including both the fi rst and second Sophistic. By doing
so, we hope to contribute to our understanding of the role that the epic tradition,
on which traditional Greek values were based, played in periods of major cultural
transformation.
Before delineating the main features of the relationship between Sophistic
and epic, it is helpful to start with a terminological clarifi cation, as the usage of
the terms ‘Sophist’ and ‘Sophistic’ is less straightforward than it might appear at
a fi rst glance (especially in relation to the cultural milieu of fi ft h-century bc
Greece). Who were the Sophists? Th e term σοφιστής functioned, in its earliest
occurrences, as a near synonym for σ οφός , ‘wise’. It was used, with a neutral
connotation, to indicate someone who could claim a share of wisdom and was
applied to poets, sages, musicians, seers and other categories of experts.1 From
the fourth century bc, mainly under Plato’s infl uence, the term assumed the
more technical, and negative, meaning of ‘professional educators who gave
instruction to young men, and public displays of eloquence, for fees’.2 Far from
being a homogenous group of intellectuals, as the use of a common denomination
might suggest, each of the Sophists pursued diff erent interests and doctrines,
ranging from politics and rhetoric to arithmetic, astronomy and music.3 Th e
very nature of their profession exacerbated the individualistic traits of their
activity: as they were competing for pupils, the Sophists rivalled each other to
prove the superiority of their skills. 4 It is possible, however, to identify some
common features in their practice: to put it with Laks and Most, the Sophists
1
