Reclaiming the Theatrical in the Second Sophistic
2001; Texas Tech University Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1935-0228
Autores Tópico(s)Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
ResumoIn 144 C.E., at his own command, dying sophist Polemon was carried before dawn to his family tomb outside gates of Laodicea and buried alive. He urged men closing up tomb to hurry, so that sun would never see him speechless; to his friends, overcome with grief, he cried out in a loud voice: Give me a body and I will declaim! ([LANGUGAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] VS 544). (1) A grand performer to end, Polemon makes his last appearance in Philostratus longing not for extended life, but for a chance to perform once more-a remarkable request, made more so by fact that he specifies precisely what kind of performance he would like to give: a [LANGUAGE NOT PRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] one of several types of formal speech commonly performed by Greek of imperial period in their masterly displays of epideictic oratory. With their shocking fusion of melodramatic theatricality and deadly seriousness, Polemon's last words crystallize strains shot through relationship between an cient manly virtue and its performance- strains that I shall read against backdrop of contemporary ethical thought and in broader terms of Greek cultural identity under Roman empire. Marcus Antonius Polemon was one of a highly competitive assortment of Greekspeaking orators known as sophists who visited urban centers throughout much of Mediterranean world giving epideictic performances based on mythological narratives and classical thought; rephrasing, for instance, Demosthenes' Against Leptines (attested in VS 527) or giving voice to Xenophon's imagined plea to be executed alongside Socrates (VS 542); or transforming Odysseus' reproach to Achaeans in Iliad Book 2 into stylish prose (Tiberius, [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 11.538). Active throughout early and middle principate, these men also worked as imperial legates and as informal mediators between Greek cities in eastern provinces of Roman empire and, in these and other circumstances, gave speeches on current events. (2) Their Severan biographer Philostratus, with some exaggeration, named period of their prominence a[LANGUAGE NOT REPORDUCIBLE IN ASCII], explaining, must not be called new, since i t is old, but rather second, following sophistic movement in fifth- and fourth-century Athens (VS 481). (3) The last thirty years have witnessed something of a scholarly explosion on Second Sophistic (or. to call it by a more neutral term, Greek imperial period) which has featured innovative work on Greek novel as well as sophists' oratorical performances. (4) Recently, period has been viewed in light of historical and philosophical developments sketched out in third volume of Michel Foucault's History of Sexuality. (5) Foucault draws attention to gradually intensified energy directed by Greek and Roman imperial writers along following lines: fashioning of an internally constructed and managed self, as opposed to natural development of an individual actor shaped by and subject to external laws of civic society; and specific disciplinary practices through which self is contemplated and maintained, practices that generally uphold and justify dominant hierarchies of gender, ethnicity, and class. In Foucault's writings, it is philosophers and physicians active in Latin-speaking West, notably younger Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch, Galen, and Marcus Aurelius, who dominate ethical discourse of selfhood in first three centuries C.E. Added to his list, as I am not first to suggest, must be sophists, who, as learned men [LANGUAGE NOT REPORDUCIBLE IN ASCII] and walking exemplars of elite Greek culture, well-read in classical philosophy and familiar with principles of physiognomy and medicine, were expert participants in cultural experience Foucault characterizes as the care of self. (6) It is unquestionably case that sophists, particularly in their role as teachers of elite youth, espoused and advocated many of beliefs and practices Foucault describes. …
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