Philostratus / edited by Ewen Bowie and Jaś Elsner.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Bowie, Ewen.

Elsner, Jaś.

Series:

Greek culture in the Roman world

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Philostratus, the Athenian, active 2nd century-3rd century--Criticism and interpretation.

Philostratus.

Philostratus, the Athenian, active 2nd century-3rd century.

Criticism and interpretation.

Sophists (Greek philosophy).

Physical Description:

xii, 401 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Summary:

This is the first volume of collected papers to be devoted to the work of Philostratus, the great essayist, biographer and historian of Greek culture in the Roman world, and the most scintillating writer of Greek prose in the third century AD. The contributions cover his remarkable range, from hagiographic fiction to historical dialogue, from pictorial description to love letters, and from prescriptions for gymnastics to the lives of the sophists. The quality of his writing and the concerns within his purview - religion, aesthetics, athletics and education - make Philostratus' writings among the most important documents for understanding Greek culture in the Roman world, and guide us in exploring the maturity of Hellenic cultural identity in the context of the rise of Christianity. Few studies have been devoted to this neglected figure, and this collection will therefore be of great value to scholars and students of imperial Greek literature and art.

Contents:

A protean corpus / Jaś Elsner

Philostratus : the life of a sophist / Ewen Bowie

Culture and nature in Philostratus / Simon Swain

Narrator and audience in Philostratus's Lives of the sophists / Thomas Schmitz

Philostratus and the symbolic roles of the sophist and philosopher / Harry Sidebottom

The deaths of the sophists : philostratean biography and elite funerary customs

Joseph Rife

Virtual visions : phantasia and the perception of the divine in the life of Apollonius of Tyana / Verity Platt

The ancestor of my wisdom : Pythagoras and pythagoreanism in the life of Apollonius / Jaap-Jan Flinterman

The Odyssey of Apollonius : an intertextual paradigm / Gert-Jan van Dijk

Performing heroics : language, landscape and identity in Philostratus's Heroikos / Tim Whitmarsh

Black sails to Achilles : the Thessalian pilgrimage in Philostratus' Heroicus / Ian Rutherford

Training athletes and interpreting the past in Philostratus's Gymnasticus / Jason König

Constructing identity in the love letters of Philostratus / Simon Goldhill

Colour in the Imagines of Philostratus / Sandrine Dubel

Absorption and erudition in Philostratus' Imagines / Zahra Newby

Philostratus and the Narcissus of Caravaggio / Stephen Bann.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 358-388) and index.

ISBN:

9780521827201

0521827205

OCLC:

149240702