Thèses sur le sujet « Philostrat »

Dans cette thèse, nous analyserons la manière dont Philostrate, auteur du IIIe siècle apr. J.-C., élabore une nouvelle version de la Guerre de Troie dans la partie centrale de l’Heroikos. Nous en étudierons les sources de ce dialogue et leur utilisation, et tâcherons d’identifier des parallèles avec des textes littéraires et non littéraires de l’époque impériale. Nous examinerons également la manière dont Philostrate traite toute une série de problématiques intrinsèquement liées, comme le statut et la nature de la poésie homérique, ou encore la conception de la vérité, du mensonge et de la fiction. Puisque l’Heroikos sur des événements lointains, connus au travers de poèmes canoniques, ce dialogue mêle à la création fictionnelle une forme de critique poétique qui dépasse les genres littéraires pour mieux enquêter sur des questions centrales dans la Seconde sophistique. Dans cette étude, nous tenterons donc de lire le texte à la lumière de la culture philostratéenne – théories et pratiques rhétoriques, habitudes intellectuelles courantes à l’époque impériale
The thesis addresses the way in which Philostratos, writing in the early third century C.E., fashions a new version of the Trojan War in the central part of his dialogue, the Heroikos. The study presents a thorough analysis of the dialog’s sources and their use as well as of the parallels with other literary and non-literary texts from the Imperial period. It also examines the ways in which this text addresses a set of broader interrelated questions such as the status and nature of the Homeric poems and conceptions of truth, lies and fiction. As a dialogue about events from the distant past known primarily through canonical poems, the Heroikos combines fictional creation with a form of criticism that goes beyond the domain of the literary to address questions that were key to the Second Sophistic. The aim of the research is therefore to throw light on the text from within Philostratos’ culture, identifying rhetorical concepts and practices as well as broader intellectual habits which were widespread in the Imperial period

A partir de l'etude d'une vie de philosophe, composee probablement dans les premieres decennies du iiie siecle de notre ere, par un intellectuel tres en vue dans les cenacles litteraires de l'empire, une recherche en anthropologie historique a ete engagee, sur la figure du theios aner dans le monde hellenistico-romain a l'epoque imperiale. Apollonios de tyane, magnifie par philostrate dans une oeuvre litteraire complexe, est un des derniers modeles de sagesse que le paganisme nous a legue. Il s'agit donc d'essayer de comprendre pourquoi et comment un philosophe discret du premier siecle, d'obedience vraisemblablement pythagoricienne, qui n'a pas laisse d'oeuvre marquante, s'est trouve metamorphose en sage divin a pretention universelle par un biographe elogieux. La premiere partie est consacree a la vita apollonii comme genre et a sa place dans le champ litteraire. Elle analyse en trois chapitres les conditions globales de production et la singularite de l'oeuvre. Dans le ch. 1 sont abordees la personnalite et la formation de philostrate. Ceci permet de situer l'ecriture de cette biographie-roman dans la tradition renouvelee de la periode severienne, etape importante vers l'antiquite tardive. On decouvre ainsi dans le 2e ch. La complexite de ce recit edifiant ou biographie et hagiographie se combinent. Le 3e ch. En vient dans cette logique a situer le recit, et le modele propose, entre histoire et fiction, comme temoignage authentique sur cette periode de l'antiquite. Une vie s'inscrivant necessairement dans le temps et l'espace, il s'agit de montrer comment apollonios est mis en situation par philostrate dans un certain nombre d'ensembles spatio-temporels. La seconde partie s'attache donc a l'etude du voyage dans le temps qui ancre apollonios dans l'empire romain du 1er siecle de notre ere, mais qui autorise aussi aussi le heros a une serie de fuites hors du temps de l'histoire, caracterisant ainsi clairement le "voyage merveilleux". On suit alors, dans un 1er chapitre, le temps du voyage et les itineraires concrets du heros dans l'oikoumene, et ses echappees vers les territoires des confins. Le ch. 2, le "temps du recit", introduit les questions de l'ecriture a travers les modalites de l'enonciation, l'identification du narrateur et l'analyse des systemes de temporalite a l'oeuvre dans le recit. Le ch. 3 consiste en l'analyse du temps vecu du personnage, d
A research in historical anthropology was started off on the figure of the theios aner at the imperial time. The aim of this study is to try and understand why and how a very unassuming philosopher of the first century, who did not leave any major work, was turned into a divine sage of universal claim by a laudatory biographer. In the early third century the sophist philostratus, member of julia domna's circle, has greatly emplified the picture of a capadocian philosopher : apollonius of tyana. The first part is about the position of this story in the literary field, where one can recognise novelistic topoi between biography and hagiography. Apollonios is depicted by philostratus in a certain number of spatial and temporal sets. The second part of the research deals with the study of the travel in time that situates apollonios of the 1st century a. D. , but that also allows the hero to escape history, clearly characterizing the "marvellous travel". The third part tackles the subject of the gap between "real geography" and "wonderland", exploring concrete spatial figures and their relations to a referential system that works in relation to the greek tradition. In this search/inquiry of identity, it appears that the greek horizon, omnipresent, is promoted in the absolute as the referential space. The main places of worship, the areas, cultural sites and shrines visited, establish themselves as founding lieux de memoires of the mediterranean culture, that the historic rome and its princes try and take on heritage. In his work, philostratus delivers emphatic defences of hellenic culture and religion. The last part deals with the emblematic nature of the figure of apollonios, considered both in his "being" and in his "doing" as a theios aner. The 1st ch. Presents some characteristics of the divine man who was a charismatic individual, prophet, wise man and wizard, usually with a following of diciples. The second chapter deals with apollonius' activity on earth : religious, political and miracoulous. The epilogue presents apollonius and his legend from the third to the twentieth centuries. The history of apollonius' posthumus reputation is long and complex. Modem accounts of apollonios are necessarily dominated by the biographic work of philostratus. V. A. Has been successively admired and dismissed as a fraud from the time of writing. There is another important ele

J'ai complété l'étude du mythe des Danaïdes que j'ai effectuée au cours de mon premier Doctorat à l'Université d'Urbino. Mon travail a consisté dans l'analyse de ce mythe de l'époque archaïque à l'époque classique, traité plus ou moins longuement dans le Catalogue des femmes d'Hésiode, le poème argien Danais, la IXème Pythique et la Xème Néméenne de Pindare. Les Suppliantes d'Eschyle et le dithyrambe de Melanippide. Les Danaïdes sont des figures importantes, qui d'une part sont en relation avec l'utilisation rationnelle des eaux par le creusement de puits, d'autre part sont impliquées dans une histoire cruelle et sanglante. Les Danaïdes se sont échappées de leur patrie, l'Egypte, pour éviter un mariage avec leurs cousins, les fils d'Egyptos. Pourquoi les fuient-elles ? Une partie des critiques prétend qu'elles fuient l'inceste ; d'autres considèrent qu'elles ont horreur des Egyptiens parce qu'ils représentent la violence et la démesure ; un troisième groupe affirme qu'elles éprouvent de l'aversion pour tout mariage, quel qu'il soit. J'ai cherché à montrer que les Danaïdes, si l'on s'en tient aux sources archaïques ont fui les Egyptiens pour un motif dynastique, et que c'est Eschyle qui a mis l'accent sur le fait que le mariage doit être un acte fondé sur l'amour et un accord mutuel. Quoi qu'il en soit, quarante-huit Danaïdes ont tué leurs maris lors de la première nuit de noces. Seule Hypermnestre a épargné son époux Lyncée parce qu'elle est tombée amoureuse de lui. Selon certains auteurs, ses soeurs ont été purifiées par Athéna et Hermès et se sont remariées (le récit de leur second mariage se trouve dans la IXème Pythienne de Pindare et dans le Periegesis de Pausanias. De la seconde moitié du Vème siècle jusqu'à la première moitié du IVème siècle, les témoignages relatifs aux Danaïdes sont nombreux, à partir d'Aristophane, qui a écrit une comédie intitulée Danaïdes, à la suite d'une tragédie intitulée Lyncée, due à Théodecte, un auteur qui a vécu au IVème siècle av. J.-C. De ces deux textes nous n'avons que des fragments : quelques vers pour Aristophane, un résumé pour Théodecte. Beaucoup d'auteurs tragiques et comiques ont écrit des pièces intitulées Danaïdes : Callias, Timoclès, Diphilius, Chaerémon, mais nous n'en avons gardé que les titres ou quelques vers. Par le biais de l'analyse philologique mon travail a mis en évidence ce qui reste de ce patrimoine presque perdu. L'aspect le plus connu du mythe des Danaïdes (la punition de verser indéfiniment de l'eau d'un récipient dans un pithos percé), est presque inconnu dans la littérature classique jusqu'à la fin du deuxième siècle av. J.-C. : on en trouve la première mention littéraire dans le dialogue pseudo platonicien intitulé Axiochus. Cet aspect est bien mis en évidence dans le genre de la parémiographie : les héroïnes qui se trouvent aux Enfers, versent l'eau dans une jarre percée avec une petite passoire, ce qui est une façon de montrer l'inutilité de leur travail. Comment se sont-elles retrouvées aux Enfers ? Quel texte littéraire grec tragique ou comique a raconté cette histoire ? Aucun témoignage n'a subsisté, mais nous savons que souvent les proverbes grecs ont une dérivation littéraire. En conséquence, il est possible qu'une pièce ait été la source de cette histoire. J'ai envisagé de rechercher si tel ou tel proverbe a une origine populaire ou littéraire. Il existe en effet une autre série des proverbes liés à ce mythe des Danaïdes, à propos du triste sort des Egyptiens, proverbes dont l'antiquité est attestée. Mon travail a effectué un passage en revue et une analyse philologique de chacune des sources antiques qui ont traité des Danaïdes. D'autre part, j'ai souligné les modalités de formation du mythe et étudié sa réception à travers les différentes époques de la littérature et de la civilisation des Grecs. En résumé, pour la communauté d'Argos dans l'époque archaïque les Danaïdes furent des héroïnes cultuelles, liées à l'utilisation des eaux
The purpose of my research is the myth of Danaïdes, women in the first wedding night have killed their husbands, son of Aegyptus. Why Danaïdes are murderers?According to the Argive mythology Danaïdes have killed their husbands for dynastic reasons, but Aeschylus Suppliant’s show that they have killed to escape the excesses and violence of their suitors. I have already studied this myth to race my first doctorate at the University of Urbino. Gold, with the University of Trento and Lille I want to pursue, based on testimony Aristophane, who wrote a comedy entitled Danaïdes to follow the tragedy Theodectes’s Lyncée, author lived in the fourth century BC. evidence they are fragmentary: we have only a few lines to Aristophane, the only summary for Theodectes. All this shows the great vitality of this myth, but the direct tradition makes us get too little! Other times, the Danaids became the subject of a proverb related to water. This aspect is very keen in the kind of parémiographie where the heroines are in hell: they're going to spill the water in a jar pierced with a small strainer, to demonstrate the futility of their travail. How the heroines are they finished in hell? Greek literary text which told this story? No evidence in respect of, but we know that the Greek proverbs often have a literary diversion. Τherefore is it possible that she was either lost the source for this story room? Μy research should investigate whether such a popular proverb or literary origin. We will say that there is another series of proverbs related to this myth Danaïdes, especially that tell the plight of Egyptian and are very ancient. In the first half of the fifth century they already have their canonical formulation, demonstration of their antiquity. Αἰγύπτου γάμος and Λέρνη κακῶν are, with respect, meaningful: the Greek, in utter such proverbs, want to denote evils and misfortunes endless

Cette étude a porté principalement sur deux traités de Plutarque, le De Iside et les Questions romaines, sur La Déesse syrienne de Lucien et son pamphlet Alexandre ou le faux prophète, enfin sur La Vie d’Apollonios de Tyane de Philostrate. Elle questionne le sens philosophique, euristique et rhétorique de l’utilisation des mystères antiques dans ces textes littéraires d’époque impériale. Sont concernés les mystères d’Adonis, de la Déesse-Mère et de Glycon. La première partie, qui se focalise sur les Adonies, tente de démontrer que Philostrate, dans la Vie d’Apollonius, 7.32, non seulement renoue avec les sarcasmes d’Aristophane – et de ses héritiers – sur le culte, mais encore, utilise l’interprétation platonicienne sur les jardins d’Adonis, pour expliquer le sens qu’il donne au règne de Domitien. La lecture platonicienne de ce rituel semble du reste être l’une des raisons du silence de Plutarque sur Adonis dans le De Iside. De fait, la théologie philosophique déployée dans le texte nous paraît incompatible avec les pratiques grecques ou sémitiques en l’honneur de l’Amant d’Aphrodite-Astarté. La deuxième partie ensuite examine l’utilisation de la notion de ‘déesse mère’. D’une part, nous avons tenté de démontrer que la notion permet de prendre en considération d’abord la maternité d’Isis, ensuite la représentation d’Apollonios en Anti-Attis, enfin la déformation caricaturale du portrait d’Alexandre, le faux prophète. D’autre part, la fonction euristique de la notion, qui apparaît dans ces exemples, semble développée aussi dans le contexte mystérique de La Déesse syrienne. Lucien en effet interroge le culte du pays natal par la langue et la culture de son pays d’adoption. Pendant qu’il affirme sa grécité, il (re)devient pleinement ce qu’il n’a jamais cessé d’être : un Assyrien. L’enquête sur le culte de Glycon enfin, dans la troisième partie, propose une autre lecture de l’Alexandre ou le faux prophète. Les mythes et les mystères traditionnels y sont peut-être utilisés dans un but rhétorique. La rhétorique de Lucien semble proposer au lecteur une sorte de mythologie de Glycon-Alexandre. Cette mythologie que nous avons essayé de déterminer, suivant la tradition des mystères (presque toujours associés à une mythologie), contribue à rendre la caricature d’Alexandre plus efficace
This study focuses mainly on two treaties of Plutarch, the De Iside and the Roman Questions, on the Lucian’ Syrian Goddess and his lampoon Alexander or the false prophet, at last on Philostratus’ Life of Apollonios of Tyana. It questions the philosophical, euristic and rhetoric meaning of the ancient mysteries’ use in these literary texts of imperial period. Are concerned the mysteries of Adonis, the Goddess Mother and Glyco. The first part, which is focused on the Adonia, tries to show that Philostratus, in The Life of Apollonius 7. 32, not only revives Aristophanus’s sarcastic remarks (and its heirs) on the worship, but also uses the Platonic interpretation on the gardens of Adonis, in order to explain the meaning he gives to Domitian’s reign. The Platonic reading of this ritual seems moreover to be one of the reasons of Plutarch’s silence on Adonis in the De Iside. In fact, the philosophical theology developed in the text appears inconsistent to us with the Greek or Semitic practices in honour of the Lover of Aphrodite-Astarte. The second part furthermore examines the use of ‘the goddess mother’. On the one hand, we tried to show that the concept allows to consider the maternity of Isis, then the representation of Apollonius into Anti-Attis, at last the caricatural deformation of Alexander’s portrait, the false prophet. On the other hand, the euristic function of the concept, which appears in these examples, seems developed also in the mysteric context of The syrian goddess. Lucian indeed examines the religion of the native land by the language and the culture of his adopted country. While he proclaims his Greekness, he became fully what he never ceased to be : an Assyrian. The investigation into the worship of Glyco, in the third part at last, offers another interpretation of Alexander or the false prophet. Perhaps, the traditional myths and mysteries are used there in a rhetorical purpose. Lucian’s rhetoric seems to present to the reader a sort of Glyco-Alexander’s mythology. This mythology we tried to define, according to the tradition of the mysteries (almost always related to a mythology), helps to make the caricature of Alexander more effective

The miracle-workers and magicians we meet in the Greco-Roman world and on the pages of Greco-Roman narratives are among the most difficult characters for modem scholars to understand. While Greco-Roman writers presume their readers will share their socio-cultural script and understand how one distinguishes between a legitimate miracle-worker and an illegitimate magician, this script is lost on modem scholars. Hindered first by absolute definitions for miracle and magic from social anthropology and then by relative definitions from the sociology of knowledge, this thesis calls for a re-engagement of the "historic imagination" with respect to these sorts of characters. In particular, this thesis suggests that a detailed investigation into the operation of characters labelled as performers of miracles or magic can reveal the criteria which distinguished the two in the minds of Greco-Roman Mediterraneans as well as revealing the practical outworking of the criteria themselves. Two narratives are chosen for this task-the canonical Acts of the Apostles, representing a Jewish- Christian angle, and Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana, representing a pagan angle. Methodologically the study proceeds by converting these narratives into "narrative worlds" and then subjecting the narrative worlds to a social investigation using models suggested by the work of Mary Douglas and Peter Brown. Under the rubric of "gaining power, " "intersecting power, " and "defending power" the two narrative worlds projected by these texts are compared and contrasted with respect to the criteria being used to distinguish miracle-worker from magician. The conclusion reached is that in both texts legitimacy for a mediator of divine power is found especially in demonstrating power without appearing desirous of personal gains. A miracle-worker is successful in this regard; a magician is one who fails in this regard.

Rapport de recherche bibliographique Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées : Ingénierie documentaire : Villeurbanne, ENSSIB : 2003. Rapport de recherche bibliographique Diplôme d'études supérieures spécialisées : Ingénierie documentaire : Lyon 1 : 2003.

This thesis explores the anxieties and opportunities that attend fame and posterity in the second sophistic and how they play out in both literary and monumental expressions of cultural production. I consider how elite provincials in the Roman empire, who are competitive, bi- or even tri-cultural, status-driven, often politically active, and engaged in cultural production, attempt to construct a future presence for themselves either through the composition of literature that is aimed (at least in part) at the future or through efforts to write themselves into the landscape of their native or adopted cities. I argue that the cultural and temporal perspective of these men drives their multifarious, playful, and self-reflexive approach to the production of literature or monuments. For those men engaged in the ‘second sophistic’, in the narrower, Philostratean definition, there is an ever present tether on their creative efforts, in that for contemporary success they must immerse themselves in the culture of classical Athens; and the prominent practice of epideictic oratory, with its promotion of improvisation and lack of repetition, discourages the kind of literary effort that aims at eternity. At the same time, their attempts to build themselves into the hearts of cities is less restricted, in that those who possess or have access to sufficient wealth can grant elaborate benefactions which essentially stand as monuments to their financer. Nevertheless, their belated position with respect to the Greek literary canon and the heights of political and cultural prestige invested in classical Greece infuses the cultural efforts of the second sophistic with a sense of pathos that acknowledges the impossibility of creating and controlling one’s future reputation regardless of how much effort is applied. At the same time, this impossible position, rather than limiting them, endows these men with a varied, self-ironizing, intertextual, intermedial, and unique approach to cultural production that actively engages with the inescapable and laudable past in order to carve a lasting impression on the literary and physical landscape of the Roman empire.

In this thesis we explore the period of renewal that Athens experienced during the second century AD. This century saw Athens at the peak of her cultural prominence in the Roman Empire: the city was the centre of the League of the Panhellenion and hosted a vibrant sophistic scene that attracted orators from across the Greek world, developments which were ideologically fuelled by contemporary conceptions of Classical Athens. While this Athenian 'golden age' is a standard feature of scholarship on Greek culture under Rome, my thesis delves further to explore the renewal of the urban and rural landscapes at this time and the relationship between that process and constructions of Athenian identity. We approach the renewal of second-century Athens through four lenses: past and present in the Ilissos area; the rhetoric of the Panhellenion; elite conflict and competition; and the character of the Attic countryside. My central conclusions are as follows: 1. The renewal of Athens was effected chiefly by Hadrian and the Athenian elite and was modelled on an ideal Athenian past, strategically manipulated to suit present purpose; the attractions of the fifth-century golden age for this programme of renewal meant that politically contentious history of radical democracy and aggressive imperialism had to be safely rewritten. 2. Athens and Attica retained their uniquely integrated character in the second century. Rural Attica was the subject of a powerful sacro-idyllic ideology and played a vital role in concepts of Athenian identity, while simultaneously serving as a functional landscape of production and inhabitation. 3. The true socio-economic importance of the Attic countryside as a settled and productive landscape should be investigated without unduly privileging the limited evidence from survey, and by combining all available sources, both literary and documentary, with attention to their content, cultural context and ideological relevance.

La tesi propone lo studio della fortuna rinascimentale delle Eikónes di Filostrato Maggiore, raccolta di ekphráseis composta nell’ambito della seconda sofistica, una corrente filosofico-letteraria che si sviluppò in Asia Minore tra il I e il IV secolo d.C., che negli ultimi anni ha iniziato ad attrarre un’attenzione che in un primo momento era stata negata loro, nonostante questo testo abbia attirato la curiosità di artisti, eruditi e critici sin dall’inizio dell’età moderna. Il testo, infatti, riveste a partire dall’età moderna un’importanza non marginale, venendo a influenzare con la sua impostazione teorica e visione estetica la nascente teoria artistica, andando ad affiancarsi ad altri repertori mitografici più celebri e maggiormente studiati, e divenendo un’importante fonte erudita cui attingere nell’elaborazione di programmi iconografici e nella scelta di soggetti per opere d’arte. La riscoperta del testo, con la sua premessa che andava ad esaltare la sapienza dell’arte pittorica, scienza divina, è esito del momento storico in cui si rivalutava la posizione sociale dell’artista, che da maestro esperto di ars mechanica diventava capace interlocutore della vita intellettuale di corte. Attraverso il principio dell’ut pictura poesis e alla dotta consapevolezza della duplice accezione del verbo greco graphein, che andava a definire non solo il termine «scrivere», ma identificava ugualmente il termine «disegnare», e che legittimava la valutazione dell’arte figurativa e della letteratura come fortemente connaturate, quasi due facce di una medesima medaglia, alimentando il costante parallelo tra parola e immagine, si cercava di assegnare alle arti figurative una posizione più nobile rispetto a quanto fosse stato possibile fino a quel momento. Le descrizioni di opere d’arte antica erano fondamentale punto di partenza per questa rivalutazione, strada maestra indicata da Leon Battista Alberti al doctus artifex per arrivare a una competizione con la perduta pittura degli antichi. Questa iniziale considerazione nei confronti del testo è parallela all’attenzione nei confronti del contenuto mitologico delle descrizioni in esso presentate, con le sue varianti del mito particolarmente inusitate, che fornivano perfetto materiale non solo per i compendi mitografici dell’epoca, ma anche per ispirare i soggetti di opere d’arte. Dopo aver in un certo senso accantonato il dibattito relativo alla reale esistenza della galleria di dipinti conservati nel portico della villa napoletana descritti dal retore greco, che ha interessato gli studiosi del testo a partire dal XIX secolo sino agli anni Novanta del Novecento, numerosi sono stati gli studi che si sono interrogati circa la sua valenza di testimonianza archeologica e i suoi legami con la pittura antica. Ultimamente, invece, l’attenzione degli studi pare essersi incentrata sulle modalità di ricezione del testo, lasciando fuori dall’indagine, tuttavia, la portata del testo in ambito storico artistico, più ampia di quanto normalmente si pensi. Pionieristici sono stati in questo campo gli studi di inizio Novecento di Richard Förster, filologo tedesco dagli ampi interessi, i cui contributi (1904 e 1922) sono stati fondamentali per riportare l’attenzione sul testo di Filostrato, normalmente inteso quale autore minore e scarsamente influente sulla produzione artistica. Obiettivo del lavoro, pertanto, riagganciandosi alle premesse poste dagli studi di Förster, è offrire uno studio di sintesi che cerchi di individuare i riflessi che la portata teorica del proemio delle Eikónes ha riversato nella letteratura artistica rinascimentale e costituire una raccolta sistematica, per quanto completa possibile, delle opere d’arte del XVI e XVII secolo, il cui soggetto sia stato suggerito dalle ekphráseis di Filostrato. La prima parte del lavoro, dopo aver ricostruito la storia critica del testo e averne messo in luce le caratteristiche fondamentali, sarà quindi dedicata ad approfondimenti circa la fortuna della concezione teorica contenuta nelle Imagines nella letteratura artistica e mitografica già a partire dal XV secolo, alla loro circolazione e trasmissione. Invece, la seconda parte conterrà il catalogo delle opere del XVI secolo ispirate al testo di Filostrato, ponendo come limite cronologico il 1614, anno di pubblicazione della sontuosa edizione illustrata della traduzione francese dell’opera, dedicando a ciascuna di esse una scheda di approfondimento. In appendice, invece, verrà inserito un breve excursus sulla fortuna secentesca delle Eikónes, che potrà essere spunto per studi successivi, e una selezione di alcune ecfrasi contenute nei due manoscritti che tramandano il volgarizzamento eseguito dallo spartano Demetrio Mosco per Isabella d’Este, scelte in base all’effettivo uso che gli artisti ne fecero nelle loro realizzazioni artistiche o alla loro rilevanza all’interno dell’architettura complessiva dell’opera.

Flavius Philostratus was a Greek author working in the early third century CE, attached to a circle of philosophers and thinkers under the patronage of the Roman Empress Julia Domna. It is he who coined the term that we today use to describe this period in literary history-the Second Sophistic. While it was a time of startling literary productivity, it was also a time of increasing moral decline and confusion for the inhabitants of the Roman Empire. The old beliefs and morality of Graeco-Roman polytheism was fast becoming outmoded in the light of new developments coming out of the East and places like Palaestine in particular. Faiths like Christianity that placed the individual believer and his or her desire for salvation at the heart of the system were challenging the older Olympian style of religion, wherein the polis or city-state was all important. Add to this the growing influence of the cult worship of the Roman emperor and upheaval was the only foreseeable outcome, with not even the mas maiorum remaining intact as a moral compass for the average citizen. Flavius Philostratus struck out against this growing tide of moral and religious uncertainty by proposing a solution founded in religious fundamentalist tendencies. He could not do this in an obvious fashion, for fear not only of losing his imperial patroness, but pOSSibly also his life as well for speaking ill of emperor and empire. Instead, Philostratus pretends to submission, while at the very same time suggesting a return to the old ways of Graeco-Roman paganism when the needs of the many outweighed individual desires. He also suggests a way of counteracting the popularity of foreign individualized cults by regenerating the almost forgotten cult of the ancestors, with the hero-cult a particular focus. Indeed, Philostratus' approach addresses every possible concern that may have arisen in his imperial milieu, ranging from philosophy to politics to the rejection of the cult of the emperor. I have posited a theory of ancient religious fundamentalism as gleaned from the writings of Philostratus by envisioning a modified formulation of the twentieth century notion of religious fundamentalism itself. This new form removes fundamentalist dogma from its apparent reliance on a monotheistic faith and reconfigures it into a 'polyvalent' fundamentalism, wherein it is conceivable for an inhabitant of the Graeco-Roman world like Philostratus to have championed a variegated polytheistic belief system in the face of advancing Eastern influences and emperor worship, choosing to see Graeco-.Roman belief as a singular entity under threat. In an effort to conceal his beliefs from those who 111 might take offence at them, Philostratus makes use of a simulacrum for his ideals. This is the first century sage known as A pollonius of Tyana. My own approach to this idea has been twofold, with the first half being devoted to analysing the time and place in which Philostratus was working. I assess the literary tensions of the Second Sophistic itself and investigate how this may have impacted upon Philostratus' presentation of his argument I also look to the figure of Apollonius of Tyana, essential to the whole of the Philostratean fundamentalist 'project', and examine what changes Philostratus may have effected to the existing canon on Apollonius in order to make him useful to his fundamentalist perspective. The second half of my thesis involves the specific analysis of four of the works of Philostratus- the Vita Apollonii, Vitae Sophistarum, Heroikos, and Nero. Each is assessed in detail with respect to its representation of a specific aspect of Philostratus' beliefs. The Vita Apollonii presents Apollonius of Tyana as the paragon and champion of Philostratus' new belief system, teaching a Pythagorean way of life and personally reSisting Roman emperors like Domitian. The Vitae Sophistarum provides a catalogue of past sophists and offers up their behaviour as a guide for all good and wise men to follow, while the Nero presents Musonius Rufus as the archetypal philosopher battling imperial tyranny. Finally the Heroiiws is suggested as Philostratus' attempt at reinvigorating the cult of the ancestors as a means of providing an alternative individualized religious b•adition to ward off the encroaching Eastern mysteries. In all it is my contention that Flavius Philostratus deploys his sophistic talents in a manner reflective of his time, as a means of remedying Of, at the very least, positing a remedy, for the decline of belief and morality in the Roman Empire. He does this through four great literary works and chiefly through the figure of Apollonius of Tyana, his paragon and simulacrum.
Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2011.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
The 'Imagines' of Philostratus the Elder and his grandson Philostratus the Younger, is the only book surviving from antiquity that deals solely with the appreciation of painting. The thesis describes and analyses the ways in which the 'Imagines' has been rediscovered, translated, read and interpreted by humanists, artists and their patrons, from the time of the first printed edition in 1503 to the beginning of the seventeenth century when its popularity with artists diminished.

Nonnus of Panopolis’ works show in striking fashion the interplay between the worlds of Greek paganism and traditional Greek paideia and that of rising Christianity: his Dionysiaca continues and indeed may be said to sum up the tradition of the Greek epic poem; his Paraphrase of the Gospel of John applies a traditional Greek literary form to one of the founding texts of Christianity. Recent scholarly work shows the fluidity and complexity of the Christian and pagan influence in Late Antiquity. Scholars have demonstrated the influence of Greek epic and other verse works on the Dionysiaca, influences reaching from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey to Apollonius Rhodius’ Argonautica, Callimachus’ Hymns and Quintus Smyrnaeus’ Fall of Troy, as well as the Greek Anthology. Scholars have also explored the relationship of the Dionysiaca to prose works of the second and third centuries of the Common Era. Frangoulis has convincingly demonstrated the influence of the ancient Greek novel, specifically of the Sophistic Novel, on certain episodes of Nonnus’ fifth-century epic (Hélène Frangoulis: Du roman à l’épopée, Besançon, 2014). One of the most interesting Greek prose writers under the Roman Empire is Philostratus the Elder, the writer who coined the term “Second Sophistic”. This term is used to describe a flowering of Greek literary culture in the second and third centuries and in turn has led to the description “sophistic novel” given in our time to the works of Longus, Achilles Tatius and Heliodorus. Philostratus’ own work is no longer usually numbered among the novels, yet it shares many of their characteristics. This in itself justifies a close examination of the work in the light of the Dionysiaca. Furthermore, there are elements in Philostratus which immediately suggest a possible connection between the two works. In Philostratus, there is an overarching concern with Greek paideia which is also evident throughout the Dionysiaca. More specifically, in both the Vita Apollonii (VA) and the Imagines considerable space is given to Dionysus, his cult and his following. In the VA, as in Nonnus’ epic, we have Indian wars, gods interfering in the life of humans, a great interest in omens and divination and a particular fascination with the figure of Proteus. Ekphrasis is prominent in both the Dionysiaca and the VA, while the Imagines is a collection of ekphrases of pictures in a gallery. Scholars have long noted specific instances of similarity between the Dionysiaca and Philostratus’ works, but there has not hitherto been a systematic investigation into the extent and nature of the relationship between them. In this project, we have compared the VA and Imagines with the Dionysiaca, particularly concentrating on those areas that are common in prominence in the works of both writers: Proteus as emblematic of the literary agenda in the VA and the Dionysiaca; poikilia as a key technique and unifying aesthetic in all three works. The conclusion of the research is that, although Philostratus is only occasionally a dominant and recognisable source in Nonnus' epic, there are intriguing synergies between the works in many matters of detail as well as in a broader aesthetic. Philostratus in the Imagines and the VA and Nonnus in the Dionysiaca also demonstrate a common adherence to poikilia, not only as a feature of their respective works, but indeed as a hallmark of them. The importance of this to both is evidenced by their use of the figure of Proteus in the Dionysiaca and the VA. There are clear overlaps of taste and sensibility, particularly in the use of colour and particularly, but not exclusively in ekphrastic passages. The numerous examples of coincidences of detail between the works that are consistent with Nonnus being familiar with Philostratus’ works and with his taking such details for use in his own poem, just as he seems to do with many other writers and are suggestive of a closer connection than merely shared heritage and aesthetics.

Στόχος της παρούσας εργασίας είναι η εξέταση του δικτύου των σχέσεων, οι οποίες αναπτύσσονται εντός των σοφιστικών και φιλοσοφικών κύκλων που παρουσιάζονται σε δύο βιογραφικά corpora, στους Βίους Σοφιστῶν του Φιλοστράτου και στους Βίους Φιλοσόφων καὶ Σοφιστῶν του Ευναπίου, καθώς και του κεντρικού ρόλου που διαδραμάτισαν οι σχέσεις αυτές (κυρίως η σχέση δασκάλου και μαθητή) στη συγκρότηση των δύο συλλογών. Η μελέτη του δικτύου αυτών των σχέσεων στοχεύει στην ανάδειξη της μοναδικότητας των δύο συλλογών από άποψη δομής, η οποία καταδεικνύεται, επί παραδείγματι, από την ένταξη ορισμένων σοφιστών ή φιλοσόφων και τον αποκλεισμό άλλων. Ταυτόχρονα, διερευνάται πώς αυτές οι σχέσεις λειτουργούν ως μια βασική οργανωτική αρχή των Βίων και μας επιτρέπουν να διαμορφώσουμε μια σαφέστερη εικόνα για τη σοφιστική/φιλοσοφική ταυτότητα κατά την ελληνορωμαϊκή αυτοκρατορική περίοδο. Το πλέγμα σχέσεων που διαμορφώνεται ανάμεσα στους σοφιστές και τους φιλοσόφους, καθώς και ο τρόπος ταξινόμησής τους στα δύο βιογραφικά corpora μας επιτρέπουν να αναγνώσουμε τις συλλογές ως ρυθμιστικά, κανονιστικά κείμενα, τα οποία υπαγορεύουν και εξασφαλίζουν την επιβίωσή των βιογραφουμένων προσώπων για τις επόμενες γενιές.
The aim of this thesis is to examine the network of relationships developed among the sophists and the philosophers in two biographical corpora, Philostratus’ Lives of Sophists and Eunapius’ Lives of Philosophers and Sophists, as well as the pivotal role these relationships (especially those of master and student) played in the formation of the two collections. The study of the nexus of these relationships aims to demonstrate the structural singularity of these corpora, which is pointed, for instance, by the inclusion of certain sophists/philosophers and the exclusion of others; at the same time, these relationships are shown to constitute a major organizational principle of the Lives, allowing thus a sharper understanding of the sophistic/philosophical identity in the Graeco-Roman Imperial period. The two corpora are read as regulatory, canonistic texts, in the sense that they dictate and determine, to a great extent, the type of the biographised sophists and philosophers worth preserving for future generations.

Italiano: A partire dal 2007, nell’area di Piazza Venezia a Roma, sono stati realizzati alcuni sondaggi archeologici per la costruzione di una stazione per la Linea C della metropolitana. Nel sondaggio S14, quello realizzato nella Piazza della Madonna di Loreto, sono state trovate una serie di strutture appartenenti a diversi periodi storici:dal periodo tardo-repubblicano all’età moderna. Le strutture, appartenenti all’età adrianea, hanno aperto un intenso dibattito tra gli studiosi poiché i tecnici della Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma hanno proposto l’identificazione di queste strutture con quelle dell’Athenaeum dell’imperatore Adriano, un’istituzione accademica a noi nota grazie alle fonti letterarie. Purtroppo le scarse fonti a nostra disposizione, relative a questa istituzione, non hanno permesso fino ad ora di proporre un’ubicazione per l’Athenaeum di Adriano. Español: A partir del 2007, en el área de la Piazza Venezia en Roma, se realizaron una serie de sondeos arqueológicos para la construcción de una estación para la Línea C del metro. En el sondeo S14, realizado en la Piazza della Madonna di Loreto, se han encontrado una serie de estructuras pertenecientes a diversos periodos de la historia: desde el periodo tardo-republicano a la Edad Moderna. Las estructuras pertenecientes a la época adrianea han abierto un intenso debate entre los estudiosos, pues los técnicos de la Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma han propuesto la identificación de estas estructuras con las del Athenaeum del emperador Adriano, una institución académica conocida gracias a las fuentes literarias. Por desgracia, la ausencia de fuentes a nuestra disposición relativas a esta institución, no han permitido hasta ahora proponer una ubicación para el Athenaeum de Adriano. English: Since 2007, in the area of ​​the Piazza Venezia in Rome, a series of archaeological surveys for the construction of a station for Metro Line C were performed. In the survey S14, conducted in the Piazza della Madonna di Loreto, found a number of structures belonging to different periods of history from the late-Republican period to the Modern Age. The structures belonging to the Hadrian era have opened an intense debate among scholars, because technicians from the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma have proposed the identification of these structures with the Athenaeum of Emperor Hadrian, an academic institution known through literary sources. Unfortunately, the absence of sources at our disposal concerning this institution have not allowed yet to propose a location for Hadrian's Athenaeum.