Sophistic Views of the Epic Past from the Classical to the Imperial Age

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This collection of essays sheds new light on the relationship between two of the main drivers of intellectual discourse in ancient Greece: the epic tradition and the Sophists. The contributors show how throughout antiquity the epic tradition proved a flexible instrument to navigate new political, cultural, and philosophical contexts. The Sophists, both in the Classical and the Imperial age, continuously reconfigured the value of epic poetry according to the circumstances: using epic myths allowed the Sophists to present themselves as the heirs of traditional education, but at the same time this tradition was reshaped to encapsulate new questions that were central to the Sophists intellectual agenda. This volume is structured chronologically, encompassing the ancient world from the Classical Age through the first two centuries AD. The first chapters, on the First Sophistic, discuss pivotal works such as Gorgias Encomium of Helen and Apology of Palamedes, Alcidamas Odysseus or Against the Treachery of Palamedes, and Antisthenes pair of speeches Ajax and Odysseus, as well as a range of passages from Plato and other authors. The volume then moves on to discuss some of the major works of literature from the Second Sophistic dealing with the epic tradition. These include Lucians Judgement of the Goddesses and Dio Chrysostoms orations 11 and 20, as well as Philostratus Heroicus and Imagines.

Author Bio

Paola Bassino is Senior Lecturer in Classical Studies, University of Winchester, UK. Her recent publications include The 'Certamen Homeri et Hesiodi' (2018) and (as co-editor) Conflict and Consensus in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry (2017). Nicol Benzi is 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 UK. 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.