Dio Chrysostom

The Dacian Kingdom was a formidable opponent to the Roman Empire. However, it’s suprising to find a pronounced tone of wonder and acknowledgment in the greco-roman literary fonts to this enemy: far away of the classical stereotyped perception of the “barbarían”, the Dacians, the Dacian Kingdom and its most prominents sovereigns are described in a very remote line of vision against the greco-roman insight about any other foreign entity. The image of two key sovereigns of the Dacian History, Burebista and Decebalus, built by the same classical fonts, particularly attracts our attention: the first was a founder and civilizing King, creator of a power took into account by Rome along and after his reign; the second was a clever strategist, who was able to (could) put the Roman Empire against the wall, being the tragic hero of the fall and conquest of his Kingdom during the Trajan’s Dacian Wars (AD 101-106). To that is added that Burebista (without forgetting Deceneus, his adviser and heir) and Decebalus became in the personified definition of the culture, the Kingdom and the Dacian “State” in the collective imaginary of the classical fonts that speak about them.

À quoi sert la prose ? Quelle est la tâche spécifique qui lui incombe ? Quel pouvoir neuf se donne le langage, quand il se détourne du vers ? Telles sont les questions abordées dans ce volume, à travers certaines des réponses que leur ont données les Anciens. Les travaux ici réunis se focalisent particulièrement sur un moment précis de l’histoire antique : la fin de l’époque hellénistique et les premiers siècles de l’Empire romain ; la prose, en effet, accède alors dans le paysage culturel à une position dominante, qui rend justement problématiques sa fidélité à elle-même et son identité.

Gives an overview of the Greek-language literature of the Flavian period (AD 69-96) and considers (1) to what extent the dynastic changes of the period make themselves felt in that literature (mainly Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom) and (2) whether the emergence at this time of the so-called "Second Sophistic" can be connected with specifically Flavian cultural-political phenomena. Also includes contrasts between the resonance of "Flavian" themes in Plutarch and Dio and in Josephus.

Courtney J. P. Friesen explores shifting boundaries of ancient religions by way of the reception of a popular tragedy, Euripides’ Bacchae . As a play staging political crises provoked by the arrival of the “foreign” god Dionysus and his ecstatic cult, audiences and readers found resonances with their own cultural moments. This dramatic deity became emblematic of exuberant and liberating spirituality and, at the same time, a symbol of imperial conquest. Thus, readings of the Bacchae frequently foreground conflicts between religious autonomy and political authority, and between ethnic diversity and social cohesion. This cross-disciplinary study traces appropriations and evocations of this drama ranging from the fifth century BCE through Byzantium not only among “pagans” but also Jews and Christians. Writers variously articulated their religious visions over against Dionysus, often while paradoxically adopting the god’s language and symbols. Consequently, imitation and emulation are at times indistinguishable from polemics and subversion.

""Ancient philosophers had a distinctive look—long hair, beard, and a simple garment called the tribōn (in Latin, pallium), which wrapped around the waist and draped over the left shoulder, leaving the torso bear if a tunic was not worn beneath. Inspired by the iconic authority of Socrates, the “philosopher’s look” became the “uniform” of learned men and a signifier of an expertise in ideas and words. Adopted by philosophers of the various Greek schools, on the one hand it served as a visual, social bond of the intellectual class, and, on the other, it was a site of competition as the different schools promoted conflicting ideas and lifestyles, relying on dress as a display of credentials. The fashion also became popular in the third century CE as a cultural asset for those seeking to climb social and political ladders. As Christians entered the fields of literary, oratorical, and philosophical education, they inherited the significations of the garment, challenged the claims of other intellectuals, and contributed to the development of its meaning, both in familiar and new ways.

This essay examines verbal and visual representations of the tribōn in ancient literature and art, with a focus on the range of Christian attitudes. Employing a theoretical model based on Roland Barthes’s semiotic analysis of clothing and fashion, the author explores the array of significations assigned to the tribōn through the transmutation of the real garment into words (“written-clothing”) and images (“image-clothing”).  Through the execution of what the author terms a “tailoring rhetoric,” Christians participated in a struggle to define the “proper custody” of the garment, lending it both laudatory and disparaging assessments, and thus shaping the “vestimentary code” by which the garment was interpreted in late antiquity. While the literary evidence reveals an increasingly negative attitude towards the garment on the part of both western and eastern Christian authors, material culture (for example, on sarcophagi and in the mosaic decoration of liturgical spaces) displays a glorification of the garment as the dress of Christ and his saints.

The essay concludes that these verbal and visual representations of the tribōn attest to Christian participation in the curriculum and institutions of classical paideia while revealing the complex processes by which Christians defined their continuing relationship to these in late antiquity.""

Most studies of Roman local administration focus on the formal structures of power: provincial laws, imperial edicts, urban institutions and magistracies. This book explores the interplay of formal politics with informal factors such as social prejudice, parochialism and personal rivalries in the cities of northwestern Asia Minor. Through a detailed analysis of the writings and the career of the philosopher-politician Dion Chrysostomos, we gain new insights into the petty conflicts and lofty ambitions of an ancient small-town politician and those around him.

Across New Testament scholarship an idea has received broad consensus concerning the pastor behind Hebrews: that he or she has excellent training in Greco-Roman rhetoric. The Greek vocabulary, grammar, style, and arrangement all support this idea. The thesis added to the support of this idea by comparing the arguments in the sermon of Hebrews to arguments in the corpus of a contemporary and exemplary Greco-Roman Second Sophist, namely Dio “Chrysostom” Cocceianus. By comparing these arguments, the researcher demonstrated that Hebrews’s pastor truly had a firm grasp on Greco-Roman rhetoric, similar to the skill of the master orator Dio Chrysostom. After reading Dio Chrysostom’s full corpus, the researcher examined three topics in particular woven into both the orations of Dio Chrysostom and the sermon of Hebrews. These topics are: 1) appeals to authority, 2) the nature of the deity, and 3) cities and citizens. By examining these topics, the researcher elucidated many similarities in how Dio Chrysostom and the pastor of Hebrews formed their rhetorical arguments.

Chapter 8 in Lee L. Brice and Daniëlle Slootjes, eds., Aspects of Ancient Institutions and Geography: Studies in Honor of Richard J. A. Talbert, Impact of Empire 19, pp. 161-176. Boston & Leiden: Brill, January 2015.
This is a digital offfprint for restricted use only | © 2015 Koninklijke Brill NV

"Dio Chrysostom was a prominent philosopher, orator and a distinguished representative of the Second Sophistic. His discourse On Philosophy (70), written in Platonic fashion, is a philosophical dialogue, which thematically expounds doctrines of the Cynics. This short text, which probably does not survive in its full form, presents in a penetrating way the differences between pseudo-philosophers and true lovers of philosophical life. The author’s main point of argument is that genuine philosophers’ sincere goal is to act in compliance with their beliefs, in contrast with pseudo-philosophers, who are just arrogant and garrulous. The latter are unsuccessfully endeavoring by means of rhetoric to convince people of their philosophical skills. Dio launches an overt attack on those who strive to prey on the noble nature of philosophical activity, and reaches the conclusion that the philosopher is a man of action, who always tends to put the theory – namely, the ingenious conception – into practice. This text excerpt, as it defines the philosopher as a person who absolutely condemns meaningless pleasures, was probably written during the period of Dio’s exile, since at the time the author leads an ascetic life, wearing rags and wandering around various parts of the Roman Empire. Last, but not least, this discourse intelligently foregrounds the multifarious nature of Dio’s personality, since the text fits perfectly with the intellectual era of the Second Sophistic, addresses philosophical issues related to the theories of Cynicism and refers to the art of rhetoric in a covert way. This book is the first commentary of Dio’s On Philosophy in our country and thus enriches the modern Greek literature of Dio Chrysostom".

Stavros Ch. Anastasopoulos

La filosofia di Diogene è un eudemonismo, che non esclude, ma anzi implica, il riconoscimento di un moderato edonismo, sorvegliato dalla ragione e consono con gli ideali di autosufficienza propri del saggio cinico. La felicità consiste in uno stato di beatitudine a un tempo intellettuale ed emotivo cui si accompagna uno stato edonico, che non ha nulla a che vedere con il «piacere» (ἡδονή) comunemente inteso, ma designa il vivere sereno, piacevole e dolce che caratterizza l'atteggiamento di Diogene nei confronti della realtà e della φύσις. Né v'è contrapposizione tra momento ascetico e mo-mento edonico, ma anzi stretta connessione e compenetrazione: essi restituiscano due motivi co-originari del cinismo di Diogene. Quanto all'ἄσκησις, essa va intesa come un concetto dinamico, designante una attività realmente capace di operare una trasforma-zione dell'uomo atta a condurlo alla felicità.

The contribution examines the presentation of Athens in advisory speeches of Dio Chrysostom. It argues that Dio uses Athens as an important point of reference and provides, for the most part, a negative example of practices and behaviors which should not be followed. At the same time Dio's speeches are filled with concepts, imagery, and vocabulary drawn from Plato, Aristophanes, and Demosthenes, which reveal that Dio’s understanding of proper government, civic virtues and vices was shaped by the political discourse produced by the Athenian democracy.

Dio Chrysostom’s Euboicus presents a unique case-study of a divergent voice that disrupts the rather smooth discourse of the urban dimensions of the Second Sophistic. The author, having experienced a rather turbulent period of life, during Domitian’s reign and observed alternative ways of life, unfamiliar with the Greek and Roman examples, produced a manifesto of a new view of social living. The ideas and examples presented in the aforementioned work rather reject some of the fundamental social principles of urban living during Classical Antiquity. The extent that Dio was a visionary of social change or a plain reactionary as a result of his personal calamities remains unclear. However, his treatise, describing a remote community in mountainous Euboea, consists not only of a call to a retreat to a more natural and ‘primitivistic’ way of life, but also includes a sharp criticism of the dominant problems of a Greek city during the imperial era. Through his reflection on such issues, Dio, appeared to have reached the fringes of civil disobedience, inspired by cultural otherness and the resistance to the monolithic Greek and Roman social norms.

Η εν Ελλάδι παραμονή του Νέρωνα, πέρα από τις εξαγγελίες για την ἐλευθερίαν και ἀνισφορίαν για τις οποίες έμεινε περισσότερο γνωστή, αποτέλεσε και ένα σημείο καμπής στα πλαίσια της ελληνικής αυτό-εικόνας. Η συστηματική ενασχόληση και ο ερανισμός του αυτοκράτορα επί της ελλαδικής γεωγραφίας επέφερε την ελληνική ενδοσκόπηση και προετοίμασε σε έναν σεβαστό βαθμό το πνευματικό τοπίο της δεύτερης σοφιστικής κατά τον επόμενο αιώνα. Η προαναγγελία της ελευθερίας, η μη υλοποίησή της λόγω των πολιτικών ανατροπών της περιόδου 68-69 και η βίαιη επαναφορά στην πραγματικότητα με την εδραίωση της δυναστείας των Φλαβίων, πρέπει οπωσδήποτε να άφησαν ένα ανεκπλήρωτο απωθημένο στο ελληνικό συλλογικό φαντασιακό. Οι θεωρίες συνωμοσίας για το θάνατο του αυτοκράτορα εξαπλώνονταν σε μια συγκυρία ευεπίφορη για ψευδο-Νέρωνες μέσα στο χάος του έτους των τεσσάρων αυτοκρατόρων (69μ.Χ.). Σε βάθος χρόνου οι πάλαι ποτέ ευεργετημένοι θα σμίλευαν το όραμα του Nero Redivivus το οποίο προσέλαβε εκφάνσεις μιας Μεσσιανικής φιγούρας με σωτηριολογικό σχεδόν περιεχόμενο. Ο νερώνειος μεσσιανισμός που δεν ήταν δυνατό να επικαλύψει ολοκληρωτικά ο κυρίαρχος λόγος στη μετέπειτα περίοδο, σηματοδότησε μια πολιτισμική αναβίωση που αφορούσε και τις κατώτερες τάξεις. Έτσι, αντιπαραβάλλεται μια «λαϊκή» κουλτούρα προσωπολατρίας απέναντι στον κυρίαρχο λόγο της ελληνόφωνης γραμματείας, η οποία για λόγους κομφορμισμού υιοθετεί μίαν αρνητική εικόνα του Νέρωνα σύμφωνα με τη γραμμή των Λατίνων συγγραφέων.

This study explores how Late Antique rhetors – Christian and pagan – develop the festival as a literary space for the contemplation of the divine. Andrea Wilson Nightingale has shown how the Platonic dynamic of philosophical contemplation is built upon a metaphor of festival pilgrimage and spectatorship: theoria at the festival is used to develop the idea of theoria as metaphysical pilgrimage. This article shows how fourth-century rhetors follow earlier imperial authors in exploiting this metaphor and reinserting Platonic contemplation into its original festival setting.
From the second through the fourth centuries CE, the rhythms of urban life in the Greek East were dominated by festivals. In literature, festivals become settings for the evocation and performance of Hellenism. Since Platonic contemplation had become the feature of Hellenism with the most valuable cultural currency, imperial authors like Dio Chrysostom or Aelius Aristides turn festivals into sideshows for a new main event: the rhetorical performance of Platonic theoria.
This tradition is crucial for understanding the “festival rhetoric” of 4th century rhetors: an ekphrasis of a festival attributed to Libanius reenacts Socrates practicing philosophy in the agora; and Gregory of Nazianzus uses his orations for Christian festivals to lead his audience in the Platonic contemplation of theological truths. The festival – whether in the city or church – has become a site for the performance of Platonic theoria.

Fruit d’une large collaboration internationale, le présent volume, qui réunit 28 articles de spécialistes du domaine, sollicités expressément pour ce projet, se veut une contribution à l’étude de l’écriture de l’histoire dans l’Antiquité, en Grèce et à Rome, d’Hérodote à l’Empire de Byzance. À travers des enquêtes consacrées aux principaux historiens et textes historiques de cette période, il s’attache à un thème plus spécifique, celui de leur rapport à leurs prédécesseurs. Ceux-ci peuvent être utilisés par eux comme des sources d’information ou comme des modèles littéraires, voire comme l’un et l’autre en même temps. Quoi qu’il en soit, ils donnent lieu à des relectures qui prennent en compte les projets historiographiques de chacun. Car si une idée traverse les divers textes qui sont rassemblés ici – et la diversité des approches a été dès le départ conçue comme un des traits du volume –, c’est qu’il convient d’aborder chaque témoignage en le replaçant dans le contexte dans lequel il a été composé, car souvent, il en apprend au moins autant sur le moment où il a été écrit que sur celui qu’il décrit.

Fruto de ampla colaboração internacional, o presente volume reúne 28 artigos especializados solicitados especificamente para este projeto e almeja ser uma contribuição para os estudos sobre a escrita da história na Antiguidade Greco-Romana desde Heródoto até o Império Bizantino. Constituído por pesquisas centradas nos principais historiadores e textos históricos do período, este livro é dedicado a um tema específico: a relação entre tais textos e tais historiadores com seus predecessores, que podem ter servido como fontes de informação ou modelos literários, ou mesmo como ambos a um só tempo. Qualquer que seja o caso, todos dão ensejo a releituras dos projetos historiográficos de cada historiador: se há uma ideia que permeia os diversos textos aqui reunidos – e a diversidade de abordagens foi pensada desde o início como uma das marcas distintiva do volume – é a de que se deve abordar cada testemunho realocando-o no contexto em que foi produzido, uma vez que tais testemunhos lançam luz tanto sobre os momentos em que foram escritos quanto sobre aquelem que descrevem.

Fruit of a large international collaboration, the present volume collects 28 papers produced by experts especially for this project. Its chief aim is to provide a contribution to the studies on the writing of history in Greco-Roman Antiquity from Herodotus to the Byzantine Empire. It is made up of researches concentrated on the main historians and historical texts of the period and tackles one specific subject: the relation between these texts and historians with their predecessors, who could have been used either as sources of information or literary models, or both at the same time. Whatever be the case, each situation gives rise to re-readings of each historian’s historiographical project: if there is one idea pervading all the texts here collected – the diversity of approaches was thought from the start to be the one of the hallmarks of the volume – it is that each testimony should be addressed by reallocating it in the context of its own production, since these testimonies shed light both upon the moment when they were written and the one they describe.

[Paperback reissue, 2018]. The Invisible Satirist offers a fresh reading of the Satires of Juvenal, rediscovering the poet as a smart and scathing commentator on the cultural and political world of second-century Rome. Breaking away from the focus in recent scholarship on issues of genre, this study situates Juvenal's Satires within the context of the politics, oratory, and philosophy of Rome under Trajan and Hadrian. In particular, the book shows how Juvenal offers a distinctively Roman response to the Greek sophists and philosophers of the so-called "Second Sophistic." Whereas earlier studies argued for the satirist's adoption of an ironic persona in his poems, this book stresses the absence of any guiding, coherent first-person voice in his work, emphasizing instead the poems' plurality of voices and thematic preoccupation with performance and disguise. These sprawling rhetorical texts, intricately constructed but deliberately lacking any strong personal voice, ultimately communicate a sense of rootlessness and loss of identity--a sense of being invisible--within the cosmopolitan second-century world.

This article reconstructs the work of John Moles, eminent classicist with a wide range of interests, as a historian of ancient philosophy. The article focuses on Moles' studies of Dio Chrysostom, Cynicism, and Aristotle's Poetics. In particular, the article presents Moles' ever original interpretations, based on an exceptional knowledge of the ancient sources and modern scholarship. The article highlights the fundamental characteristics of Moles' approach to the history of ancient philosophy, which is grounded in a firm historical basis and in detailed, acute, and always rigorously demonstrative analyses of texts. Moles' contribution to the history of ancient philosophy is marked by strong ethical motivations and a commitment to trace in classical texts not just mere data, but rather values and ideas to be preserved and reflected upon.

The broad question of how Roman citizenship was reflected in Second Sophistic literature is examined through an overview-comparison of literary and epigraphic evidence, followed by readings of Dio Chrysostom (Civic Orations), Aelius Aristides (Roman Oration) and Cassius Dio (Speech of Maecenas, Book 52). I argue that we can see in all of these works a construction whereby Roman citizenship is closely linked with the ethical values that underpinned euergetic elites in the Eastern cities. Practically speaking, this translates into a direct equation between Roman citizenship status and elite social class which is in fact at odds with the ideology of Caracalla's eventual decree of universal citizenship.

In this paper, I argue that the praise granted to honorands by Greek cities from the Classical to the Roman period is not a separate process to be accomplished after the voting of honours, but rather is enacted by this vote and is thus an integral part of the honouring process. There was no independant encomium pronounced after the vote, although proclamations could contain praising words for the honorands. However, it seems that the praise of the honorand, in the frame of the debate (before the council and/or the assembly) preceeding the vote of the honours, gained in importance from the Hellenistic period onward.

Ancient doxography and modern scholars generally agree that Socrates did not engage in any literary activity throughout his lifetime. However, remarks by Dion of Prusa (Or. 54.4, 55.12–13) and Epictetus (Diss. 2.1.32), two authors writing roughly during the same period and holding Socrates in high esteem, could suggest that Socrates did write. Since the testimonies of Dion and Epictetus are often overlooked by Socratic scholarship, presumably because they represent minority opinion, the purpose of this paper is to analyze these comments and evaluate their relevance for our interpretation of historical Socrates and his activities as an author.

Two contemporary texts in different languages,
Plutarch’s Precepts and Tacitus’ Agricola, display remarkable commonalities
in how they present elite political activity. Specifically,
both texts idealize figures who do work for their communities that
is useful but apparently lacks glory and requires subordination to
superiors in the imperial hierarchy. The authors attempt to reconcile
these activities with the traditional aristocratic ethic, while at the
same time characterizing overt resistance to the hierarchy as useless
display. This article will trace this rhetoric through both texts and
place it in its immediate historical setting (alongside contemporary
authors including Dio Chrysostom) and in the larger context of
Roman imperial discourse.

Scholarship generally places peasants on a spectrum of socioeconomic independence and dependence. While opinions are shifting away from subsistence, self-sufficiency, and socio-political autarky as mainstays of the peasant condition, the conventional focus on hierarchical relations persists, leaving horizontal or 'relational' ones neglected. To address this imbalance, I first detail our need to deal with literary (self-) representations of rural non-elite life. I use Dio Chrysostom's Euboean discourse to develop a non-exhaustive range of peer-level interactions including hospitality, reciprocity, and cooperative work. Archaeology can help unravel how these played out, but as Site 9 from the Ager Lunensis shows, we need better evidence. Nevertheless, I offer tentative possibilities about veteran interactions and the dynamics between villa and small farm workers from Site 154 from the Ager Capenas and Case Nuove from the Roman Peasant Project. I close by alluding to the potential of integrating horizontal social relations in broader historical narratives.