Reclaiming the Theatrical in the Second Sophistic. (2024)

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In 144 C.E., at his own command, the dying sophist Polemon wascarried before dawn to his family tomb outside the gates of Laodicea andburied alive. He urged the men closing up the tomb to hurry, so that thesun would never see him speechless; to his friends, overcome with grief,he cried out in a loud voice: "Give me a body and I willdeclaim!" ([LANGUGAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] VS 544). (1) Agrand performer to the end, Polemon makes his last appearance inPhilostratus longing not for extended life, but for a chance to performonce more-a remarkable request, made more so by the fact that hespecifies precisely what kind of performance he would like to give: a[LANGUAGE NOT PRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] one of several types of formal speechcommonly performed by Greek sophists of the imperial period in theirmasterly displays of epideictic oratory. With their shocking fusion ofmelodramatic theatricality and deadly seriousness, Polemon's lastwords crystallize the strains shot through the relationship between ancient manly virtue and its performance- strains that I shall readagainst the backdrop of contemporary ethical thought and in the broaderterms of Greek cultural identity under the Roman empire.

Marcus Antonius Polemon was one of a highly competitive assortmentof Greekspeaking orators known as "sophists" who visited urbancenters throughout much of the Mediterranean world giving epideicticperformances based on mythological narratives and classical thought;rephrasing, for instance, Demosthenes' Against Leptines (attestedin VS 527) or giving voice to Xenophon's imagined plea to beexecuted alongside Socrates (VS 542); or transforming Odysseus'reproach to the Achaeans in Iliad Book 2 into stylish prose (Tiberius,[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 11.538). Active throughout theearly and middle principate, these men also worked as imperial legatesand as informal mediators between Greek cities in the eastern provincesof the Roman empire and, in these and other circ*mstances, gave speecheson current events. (2) Their Severan biographer Philostratus, with someexaggeration, named the period of their prominence a[LANGUAGE NOTREPORDUCIBLE IN ASCII], explaining, "it must not be called new,since i t is old, but rather second," following the sophisticmovement in fifth- and fourth-century Athens (VS 481). (3)

The last thirty years have witnessed something of a scholarlyexplosion on the Second Sophistic (or. to call it by a more neutralterm, the Greek imperial period) which has featured innovative work onthe Greek novel as well as the sophists' oratorical performances.(4) Recently, the period has been viewed in the light of the historicaland philosophical developments sketched out in the third volume ofMichel Foucault's History of Sexuality. (5) Foucault drawsattention to the gradually intensified energy directed by Greek andRoman imperial writers along the following lines: the fashioning of aninternally constructed and managed self, as opposed to the"natural" development of an individual actor shaped by andsubject to the external laws of civic society; and the specificdisciplinary practices through which the self is contemplated andmaintained, practices that generally uphold and justify dominanthierarchies of gender, ethnicity, and class. In Foucault'swritings, it is the philosophers and physicians active in theLatin-speaking West, notably the younger Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch,Galen, and Marcus Aurelius, who dominate the ethical discourse ofselfhood in the first three centuries C.E. Added to his list, as I amnot the first to suggest, must be the sophists, who, as learned men[LANGUAGE NOT REPORDUCIBLE IN ASCII] and walking exemplars of eliteGreek culture, well-read in classical philosophy and familiar with theprinciples of physiognomy and medicine, were expert participants in thecultural experience Foucault characterizes as "the care of theself." (6) It is unquestionably the case that the sophists,particularly in their role as teachers of elite youth, espoused andadvocated many of the beliefs and practices Foucault describes. I willargue, however, that these sophists are part of a far more complexcultural narrative than Foucault's representation of imperialintellectual life suggests. Though their activity properly belongs inthe context of the ethical practices operative in other contemp orarydiscursive systems, it is distinctively different from those systems inseveral important ways--so different, in fact, that we are forced toreevaluate Foucault's influential claims for the period, and todevelop a broader view of the nature and significance of imperialself-care.

Two crucial differences easily present themselves. First, thesophists strongly self-identify as members of an exclusively Greek asopposed to a Roman social group, whereas the practitioners of philosophyand medicine discussed by Foucault tend more readily to cross culturallines.7 Further, sophists act in public (or in spaces they redefine aspublic), in contrast to the small networks of philia or amicitia whichfoster other types of ethical practice, exemplified by the youngerSenecas friendship with Lucilius, the young recipient of the Epistulaemorales. Most importantly, the sophists embrace in their oratory anaesthetic of performative excessuone so marked that Gibbon, Wilamowitz,and others have rejected the entire era as debased and corrupt.8 Thisaesthetic, which will be discussed in detail below, is clearly visiblein the practices that Philostratus treats as most characteristicallysophisticufrom the performers strenuous efforts to mimic precisely thesound and look of the classical past, to the ir flamboyant displays ofintellect and wealth. In the end, I will make three claims. First, thepublic and excessive nature of sophistic performance problematizes theinterpretation of elite imperial self-fashioning advanced by Foucaultand still influential within and outside classical studies. Second, thesource of the sophists non-normative contributions to the wide range ofperformances of selfhood manifested in this period is to be found in thetensions coloring Greek cultural identity vis-a-vis the Roman empire,tensions revolving around the problem of performance as elite Greeks andRomans understood it. Finally, foregrounding the specifically Greekcontext of sophistic oratory allows us to see how the ethics of theiridiosyncratic styles acts as an instrument of ancient cultural politics;that is, the sophists demonstrate the capacity of performance to resistdominant structures of power, in this case by appropriating andreworking traditional notions of Greek cultural identity. This is animporta nt issue, not only with regard to our knowledge of imperialsociety, but in theoretical terms. Foucaults thoughts on resistance werenever satisfactorily articulated, and other poststructuralists work onperformance and resistance, such as Judith Butlers influential analysisof gender, remains problematic in its persistent abstraction frommaterial and political constraints.

Sophistic Oratory and Contemporary Ethics: Points of Contact

In the third volume of his History of Sexuality, Foucaultacknowledges that the imperial writers interest in the care of the self[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or the formation and maintenance ofan ethically healthy and internally coherent subject, takes itsprecedents in the classical and early Hellenistic periods, notably inthe work of the early Plato, Xenophon, Epicurus, and Zeno. Under theRoman empire, Foucault argues, an epistemic shift occurs that leads awayfrom the ethics of selfmastery dominant in these authors toward anintensification of the "relation of the self by which oneconstituted oneself as the subject of one's acts," or, inother words, the developmental process of ethical identity (1986: 41).Imperial Greek and Roman writers, in Foucault's view, undertakelabors of mind and body with the self as object, in the double sense ofmaterial and purpose: the self is both the stuff upon which ethicallabors are worked and the ultimate goal of those labors. (9) To thesewriters, the for mation of the ethical subject is determined not simplythrough a process by which the mind seeks to master bodily matter oreliminate desire, but through an ongoing mediation of relations ofbodily and mental states and practices. The need for self-governmentelaborated in, say, Platonic dialogues works loose from the field ofphilosophy, taking shape as "an attitude, a mode of behavior,procedures, practices and formulas" that eventually give rise tomodes of knowledge and practice far from its original intellectual roots(1986: 44-45).

Consequently, Roman and Greek aristocrats of the late first andsecond centuries literally practice life, transforming daily experienceinto askesis [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] a series of practicesor exercises designed to shape the self as a proper ethical subject.They engage in constant self-examination, initiate discussions about theproper modes of character formation with their peers, and devote carefulattention to moderating the practices, and especially the pleasures, ofthe body. The Pythagoreans, for example, according to Plutarch'sessay "On Socrates' daimon," train themselves inself-restraint by intentionally stirring up the appetite and thendenying it gratification--by contemplating a splendid feast, forinstance, which they hand over to their slaves in exchange for a simplemeal (Mor. 43.585). Self-examination appears on the good man'sdaily schedule in Seneca (e.g., Tranq. 3.6, 17.3) and Epictetus (Disc.1.1.4), and contemplation of the internal self replaces concern with theself s active contribution to its civic environment (Musonius Rufus inPlutarch, Mor. 453d.) (10) This is the kind of evidence--and much morecould be listed here--that lays the bedrock for what Foucault describesin his History of Sexuality: an exceptionally parsimonious ethicaleconomy, designed to center the self and to subjugate the Other, aneconomy that reconciles the denial and discipline of the self with itsaffirmation and reification.

Much about the sophists' activity conforms to Foucault'saustere vision of imperial self-formation. Sophists are first andforemost public speakers, schooled in the traditional disciplines ofthat profession, while ancient rhetoric is by nature a regulatorypractice, marked on both the linguistic and performative levels by astrong emphasis on class and gender exclusivity, self-scrutiny, andbodily discipline--an emphasis shared, of course, by the philosophersand doctors discussed in the History of Sexuality. On the linguisticlevel, every rhetorician purports to master language by representing itas a putatively coherent, and controllable, set of tropes and figures.(11) In performative terms, the oratorical speaker must manage his ownbody in accordance with a limited set of behaviors--or hexis, to usePierre Bourdieu's term--that the ancients associated with elitemasculinity. (12) Recent scholarship has done much to excavate rhetoricas a "calisthenics of manhood," focusing on its role inpromoting an i deology of subjectivity rooted in conservativehierarchies of gender and class: in the "panoptical" processof rhetorical training, the orator's disciplined body "becomesthe prison of the soul, though this same soul is charged with policingits own prison." (13) To this already heavy ideological burden, theGreek sophists add the weight of a peculiarly specific kind of culturalconservation. Not only do the epideictic exercises they perform arisefrom a centuries-old pedagogical tradition, but they are fenced by rulesof linguistics and subject matter: the successful sophist must employ anarchaic Attic dialect and a vocabulary strictly limited to that used byclassical authors in order to enact a repertoire focused on the eventsand concerns of a Greece four or five centuries in the past. (14) Evenin epideictic orations dealing with current events, such as Dio'sso-called Kingship speeches (Or. 1-4) and Aelius Aristides'encomium of Rome (Or. 26 = Dindorf 14), quotations of the classicalcanon are the rule , and concepts of law ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE INASCII]) and virtue ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) have adistinctly antiquated feel.

Like the treatises of contemporary philosophers, survivingsophistic texts and the biographical accounts of Philostratus and AulusGellius describe a quest for ethical "technologies" by whichthe sophist may regulate bodily and mental activity in accordance withcertain ideals, varying according to the philosophical beliefs and thecommitment of the individual practitioner. (15) Ancient rhetoricaltraining provides a uniquely full range of technologies ofself-observation, self-correction, and repetitive exercises that allowthe sophist to constitute himself on both an external and internalbasis--that is, in the eyes of the public and to himself--throughongoing "acts" of performative selfhood. Philostratus'general conception of his material and, specifically, the anecdotalinformation to which he grants privileged place in his Lives isinstructive. What captures his interest is how the sophists looked: howthey dressed and walked, where they slept, and, above all, how theyspoke. (16) The significance of his interest cannot be emphasizedenough, due as it is to the sophistic immersion in a rhetoricaldiscourse founded upon the concept that ethical and intellectualsubstance is yoked inextricably to the practices of the speaking body.As Greek and Roman rhetoricians were fond of saying, "As a manspeaks, so he is," and the eyes of an ancient audience were expertin decoding the motions and expressions of performers according to analphabet of moral character. (17) The sophists prided themselves ontheir mastery of this alphabet, well aware that lack of body controlmade them vulnerable to accusations of immorality from audience andpeers alike. "In my opinion, the orator, the philosopher, andanyone involved in liberal education," Aelius Aristides announcesin his attack on sophists who "betray the mysteries oforatory," "should not please the crowds in the way thoseslavish people, those dancers, mime-artists, and magicians do"[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]34.55 = Dindorf 50.414). (18)Whether the soph ist is giving an encomium of hair or of the emperor, anarrative about a snake-monster in Libya or about the Iliad, the visiblemovements of his body and the audible sounds emanating from his mouthare the proof of his character: they are the crucial details of the actthat grants him symbolic capital or takes it away.

One touchstone of contemporary discussions in philosophy andmedicine, the relation between physical activity and ethical health, ismatched and refined in the sophists' interest in oratory'srole in bodily well-being. (19) The Sacred Tales, an autobiographicaltext written by Aelius Aristides from the perspective of a decade'sstruggle with chronic illness, exemplify at least one sophist'sassumption of the habits of self-observation and management described inthe letters of Marcus Aurelius and Fronto (e.g., ad Marc. 4.11, 5.23,5.53). Aristides often yokes oratorical performance to his physicalstate, not only when he entertains the possibility that his illnessderives in part from the stage fright he suffers--although one of hiscompanions suggests this cause (4.22-23 = Dindorf 26.325)--but also inpassages having no direct relation to oratory. In many such passages,Aristides dreams of oratorical performance, or his friends tell him ofdreams in which they saw him performing. (20) When Aristides analyze sthese dreams for information on how best to treat his condition, hecollapses the mouth's multiple functions (speaking, eating,drinking, vomiting) into a single key that he hopes will unlock bodilyhealth, a process that captures the flavor of the intimate relationshiphe and his contemporaries see at work between oral performance and themaintenance of a sound self.

Early on in the collection, Aristides dreams that a delegation ofMedes at the imperial court of Antoninus Pius begs him to perform, buthe remains silent, offering them instead a chest filled with hiswritings (1.36 = Dindorf 23.281). In a heuristic reversal andsubstitution typical of dream interpretation in Artemidorus, Aristidesreads his dreaming self's refusal to speak as a prescription tospend the day fasting and vomiting: in other words, he matches hissilence in the dream, an unusual choice for a professional sophist, withvomiting, the reversal of the waking body's normal process ofconsumption. Another dream features a vision of the god Sarapis, whocures Aristides of excessive grief at the death of his foster father,Zosimus, by making an incision in Aristides' mouth in a long linerunning beneath his gums, a "cleansing" that allows Aristidesto recover (3.47 = Dindorf 25.317). (21) In an extended episode in Book4, Aristides recalls a dream in which Aesclepius commands him to resumehis career without a moment's delay, by giving impromptuperformances in the style of Socrates, Demosthenes, and Thucydides (4.31= Dindorf 26.324-25). At that time an incubant at the temple ofAsclepius in Pergamum, Aristides confides to a group of fellow sufferersalso living at the temple that the god's directive asks theimpossible: to begin with, he cannot breathe properly, and weak lungsprophesy certain failure in oratory. (22) Instead, he decides to performa mimesis of a mimesis, pretending to obey the god with a show of thetraditional preparations: arranging his clothing, standing in a certainway, and making a few introductory remarks. As he readies himself, abystander suggests the typical sophistic theme, "While Alexander isin India, Demosthenes advises the Athenians to revolt." With thissuitable topic Aristides begins the declamation "in the voice ofDemosthenes," just as the god had recommended, and to his amazementsoon finds that he is not only miraculously cured but much improved instyle. "The year 's time seemed to have been spent not insilence," he says, "but in training" [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 4.32 = Dindorf 26.325). He goes onto enjoy a fullrecovery, liberated from his physical and intellectual malaise by theact of sophistic declamation.

That the sophists' views on the care of the self are bound upin the process of performance (especially the normative exercise ofdeclamation) is not an unusual thing in itself. Maud Gleason hasdiscussed in detail the importance of oratorical breathing exercises inthe "aeration of the self" (59) crucial to maintaining thecoolness and dryness proper to manly ancients. Further, imperial ethicalpractices demand a communal context, the evaluative gaze of other men."Good men [boni] help one other," Seneca tells Lucilius,"for they train their virtues [exercent enim virtutes] and keeptheir wisdom in good condition ... Even the wise and good man needs tomove and stretch his virtue [opus est et sapienti agitatione virtutum]:he does the job himself, as far as he can, and then he is urged on byanother wise and good man" (Ep. 109.1-2). In his long essay on"Political Advice"[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]Plutarch praises Livius Drusus for asking his architect to open up thewalls of his house to public v iew, an act that offered up his behavioras an example of virtue for his fellow citizens and that enrolled themas supervisors over his every act (Mor. 800). The ethical laborperformed by a community of good men or women, who watch over andevaluate one another's daily words and deeds, is also a prominenttopos in Christian works, such as Jerome's epistles andMethodius' Symposium. In keeping with their contemporaries'emphasis on the ethical community, the sophists' oral performancesare not limited to the areas formally designated for oratory which werescattered throughout the Greek imperial city, but apply the samelanguage and delivery in the process of moving in, out of, and aroundpublic space. Aulus Gellius records the seamless transitions fromepideictic to intellectual discussion to informal conversation made bythe Gaulish sophist Favorinus, who offers a suave yet stern lecture oninfant education and maternal duties to a woman whose daughter isconsidering the demerits of breast-feeding (NA 12.1. 5-23), and whodebates questions of grammatical and moral propriety with Roman[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] as he traverses the Forum, thebaths, and the public parks (NA 3.1, 4.1, 18.1).

Polemon's career perhaps best captures the way in whichsophistic talents could be put to use beyond the formal speech. Polemonwas a skilled physiognomist, who read the looks and actions of others asreliable signs of innate character in his own ostentatious act as avirtuous arbiter of the social good. (23) Physiognomy rests on theassumption of a hom*ological relation between the innermost recesses ofthe soul and the material extension of the body: as a science ofexamination, it functions as the correlative to rhetoric's art ofdisplay. For a sophist, physiognomy is an opportunity to put thesemiotic lessons of bodily discipline learned in the course ofrhetorical training in the communal context. In giving his lessons, thebalance Polemon strikes between the restrained ethics of self-care andthe self-theatricalizing ethics of oratorical performance is typical ofhis sophistic contemporaries.

In his treatise on physiognomy, Polemon perpetuates systematichierarchies of class, gender, ethnicity, and character type, where theideal was the dignified carriage of the free Greek male citizen. (24) Itholds few surprises, bearing many similarities to the ideal typesdescribed in the third book of Cicero's De oratore and the eleventhbook of Quintilian's Institutio oratoria. In these texts, flashingeyes and a straight gaze are the signs of honesty and courage; droopingeyelids, a tilted head, a high-pitched voice, and a swaying gait aregrounds for suspicion of effeminacy; excessive blushing and other signsof unbridled emotion suggest deceitfulness or, at worst, the corruptionof a hidden cinaedus. (25) In a culture where gender is a matter ofperformance as well as anatomy, Polemon in his role as physiognomistclings to an extremely conservative taxonomy of gender, class, andethnicity. "A science of decipherment that postulates thecopresence of masculine and feminine qualities in the same individua lcould conceivably support a complementary rather than a hierarchicalview of gender," Gleason notes, "hut such possibilitiesdefinitely did not intrigue Polemon" (59). Reading the bodilypractices of those around him makes Polemon a policeman of character:and he stresses the public responsibilities of that role by carefullystaging his analyses in crowded marketplaces and wedding-parties (Phys.68-70, 1.284-92 F).

It is precisely Polemon's careful public staging thatcomplicates what a Foucauldian reading might easily characterize as astraightforward act of ethical police work. Polemon mounts his strictdefinitions of ethical virtue in the context of the relation betweenactor and audience, a context in which the audience would expectPolemon's tirade and would gain pleasure from the dramaticfulfillment of their expectations. The "great admiration of theassembled bystanders" to which Polemon refers in his Physiognomyamounts as much to a satisfied acclamation of the sophist'sexpertise--and the thrill as he brings the climax off--as it is toapproval of the old-fashioned versions of praise and blame he dispenses.(26) Aristides' accounts of his dreams are similarly placed ondisplay for an audience, both on the pages of the Sacred Talesthemselves and in the course of the many retellings to priests, familymembers, and friends which Aristides describes in the text.

Polemon's self-dramatizing lessons in ethics andAristides' account of his quest for good health are necessaryreminders that the sophists self-consciously exploit the communalscrutiny central to the contemporary discourse of self-formation inorder to create a kind of ethical theater. This is not to say, ofcourse, that Polemon describes his physiognomic expertise or Aristideshis dreams simply for dramatic effect, but that these accounts makeethical mechanisms like the analysis of facial expressions and dreamspart of the public domain of display. And display, particularly the actsof epideictic orators like the sophists, is consistently linked inancient rhetorical discourse to the production of strong emotion,usually pleasure. Epideictic speeches perform no legal or political"real-world" function, and the capacity to make such speechesmove an audience deeply is central to Philostratus' praise of thebest sophists. He claims, among other things, that the students of acertain Dionysius memorized his declamations in an effort to recapturethe extraordinary impact of his performances (VS 523), that Aristidesovercame Marcus Aurelius with a pathetic report of earthquake-strickenSmyrna (VS 582), and that when the famous sophist Hadrian arrived inRome, senate meetings were disrupted in the grandees' frantic rushto hear him speak (VS 589). The truth of these anecdotes aside, thesophists' well-developed mastery of their performative capacities,and their obvious desire to serve as exemplars of virtue for theiraudiences, stand in a certain degree of tension with their function asperformers. The clash between the cultivation of virtue and the stagingof that cultivation explains the dissonance between Aristides'descriptions of oratory, on the one hand, as a divine calling thatprohibits him from sexual activity and lends ethical propriety to everypart of his daily experience (Or. 33.20 = Dindorf 51.421), and, on theother, as the uncontrollable, divine madness of a lightning strike,which sets him on fire with inspiration (Or. 28.113 = Dindorf 49.382).

The Sophistic Performance and Its Pleasures

In a post-rhetorical culture it is easy to lose sight of the factthat the rhetoricians' accounts of the range of styles from"grandeur" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to"sweetness" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII],"force" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and"simplicity" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] prescribeoratorical delivery as well as literary composition. (27) The sophistswere expected to charm their audiences with melodic pronunciation andharmonious periods; as the artfully modest comparisons in panegyricorations by Aristides and others suggest, the sophists were artists oflanguage equal to poets. One feature of some sophistic oratory is thesinging or dancing routine, whose popularity is ascribed by criticalsources to audience demand. (28) Developed from exercises originallydesigned for use in the rhetorical school, the sophistic speech retainsa paideutic flavor, insofar as it is supposed to advertise thespeaker's ability to copy the pure Attic Greek dialect to which hewas exposed in his youth through the routine of liberal education[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and to display his memory-store ofclassical writings, featuring Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Xenophon, and theHellenistic canon of three tragedians and ten orators (Dio Chrysostom,Or. 18). (29) Accurate imitation of the proper Attic word or phrase ismatched by the sophists' expertise in the application of stylizedtheatrical techniques. Enlivening a direct quotation or rephrasing ofthese authors with the appropriate delivery, and managing vocal emphasisand gestural accompaniment in order to match the cadence of the period,are of particular importance, as suggested by the exhaustive taxonomiesof style provided by imperial rhetoricians like Demetrius [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and Hermogenes of Tarsus [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (30) So impressive was the delivery ofPhilostratus' favorite sophists, including Dio Chrysostom,Favorinus, Hadrian of Tyre, and Scopelian, that they successf ullyentertained even those who could not understand Greek (VS 491, 519,589).

Formal speeches (pieces of varying length, from the briefintroductory [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] to the full-fledged[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], or declamation) are based onimitative principles of both direct and indirect varieties, making itclear beyond doubt that the engine of sophistic performance is mimesis.(31) In general, the high imperial period witnessed the growingpopularity of the oration's narrative element [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], in which the speaker could introduce a largenumber of figural embellishments--ekphrasis, for instance--and addstrong color to his own dramatic self characterization. (32) Thecatalogues of epideictic themes in Philostratus' Lives and incontemporary rhetorical handbooks suggest that the most popular types ofepideictic sophistic speech were the most directly mimetic genera ofeidolopoeia and ethopoeia, the dramatic representation of the character([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) of mythical or historicalfigures, either male or female. (33)

In more than one sense of the word, mimesis connotes drama.According to Philostratus, even as a youth Polemon showed signs of greatthings to come ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] VS 530), andHerodes Atticus recalled that Polemon's excitement while performingwas so strong that at the climax of his speeches he would forget theparalyzing pain caused by his arthritis, rise from his chair, and stampthe ground "like the horse in Homer" (VS 537). The text ofPolemon's extant orations, a pair of elaborate ethopoetic [LANGUAGENOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in the voices of two Athenians whose sonsdied fighting the Persians at Marathon, provides something of a scriptfor these remarks. (34) Each of the fathers Polemon impersonates hopesto win the right to give the funeral oration honoring the Athenian deadby most persuasively describing his son's feats of bravery. To wintheir case, both speeches focus unwaveringly on the gruesome details ofthe two deaths: Callimachus is pierced by such a large number of projectiles that his body remains standing upright on the field afterdeath, while Cynegirus, having fruitlessly attempted to restrain thefleeing enemy ships with his bare hands, has bled to death on theMarathon beach. In the course of the speeches Polemon utilizes theentire spectrum of rhetorical and grammatical tropes and figures,especially hyperbole, chiasm, and pleonasm. (35) The climaxes consist ofextraordinary exclamations beginning with [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE INASCII], which address the severed hands and pierced body. The father ofCynegirus speaks: "O Marathonian hands ... O saviors of all Greece!O champion of the Athenians! O stronger than whole soldiers! O glory ofMarathon! O sweet right hand which the earth bore for the Greeks!"([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 34-35; translation based onReader). And the father of Callimachus: "O common target of Asia!... O revered votive offering of war! O noble image of Ares! ... Ofigure of freedom, o figure of Marathon! O body not making Greec e liedown!" ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 51-52). This is thecontext in which to view Herodes' description of Polemon'sperformative acrobatics--and for Polemon's comment, upon seeing agladiator sweating in terrified anticipation of his ordeal in the arena:"You are in so much agony, you look like you are about todeclaim" ([LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]

[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] VS 541). On the surface, itreflects the anxiety afflicting participants in the stressful arena ofsophistic performance; but it also plays on the regularity with whichthe sophists physically reenacted the agonies of individuals on thepoint of crisis or death, wailing over dead children, or crying outdesperately to their audience to fight the Persians or resist Philip.Employing carefully studied spontaneity and heavily stylized figures toreenact the classical Athenian heroic ethos, these speeches interleavethe tension described above between the sophist's own ethics ofself-mastery and its dramatic enactment through the course of theperformance with another, the tension between the object of praise,manly bravery, and the manner of the praise itself, couched in thehighest register of oratorical melodrama.

The popularity of such dramatic acting, whether in the voice of acharacter from the Greek past or, less commonly, in a fictional voice,is suggested by the fact that even those "commonplace" themesthat the rhetoricians do not recommend as particularly suitable for anethopoetic approach routinely employ ethopoeia or stylized techniquesclosely related to it. The Corinthian oration now ascribed to Favorinus,for example, which is a blame speech [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE INASCII] arising from the sophist's anger at the city'sdestruction of a statue erected in his honor, includes the recitation ofseveral poetic epitaphs and a melodramatic apostrophe of the statueitself ([Dio], Or. 37.15, 18, 38, 47). Dio Chrysostom's so-calledKingship orations-Stoicinfluenced speeches that are likely to have beenformally delivered before Trajan between 100 and 103 C.E.--muster avariety of ethopoetic techniques. In the first oration, speaking in thevoice of a nameless Boeotian woman, Dio retells the story [LANGUAGE NO TREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] of the "Choice of Heracles" (50-84).The second oration conjoins the style of a Platonic dialogue withdramatic ethopoeia, interleaving the voices of the youthful Alexanderand Philip (Or. 2). (36) The third (and most rhetorically conventional)speech includes an imitation of Xenophon's version of Socrates onthe happy man (29-41), while almost the entire text of the fourth"reenacts" an imagined conversation between Alexander and theCynic Diogenes (cf. the other "Diogenes" speeches, Or. 6, 8, 9and 10). When, in other speeches, Dio employs alternatives to directcharacter acting, he continues to foreground his imitative abilities,through recitations of others' stories (notably Or. 7, 11) andoriginal poetry (a Homeric cento, Or. 32.82-85).

In an autobiographical speech before an Athenian audience, Dioascribes the launching of his sophistic career to an ethopoeticperformance in which he attracted an audience with emotionalself-exhortations on the familiar philosophical topics of self-controland fortitude. After his banishment at the hands of Domitian, he says,he doubted whether he could endure the experience, "but then Irecalled Odysseus, in Homer ... and then Electra, in one of the laterpoets" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Or. 13.4, 5). Here wemay recall Aristides, who also ties the success of his oratorical careerto his ethical ordeal (phrased most explicitly at 4.27). Eventually,Dio's admonitions to himself-performed aloud in public-and hisadoption of the philosopher's costume garner him a new career as aphilosophical sophist, and he begins to give performances in the personaof Socrates:

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People began to ask me to speak in public ... when at a loss, Iwould have recourse to an ancient remark made by a certain Socrates...nor did I pretend that it was mine, but requested [my audience], in caseI was unable to recall everything correctly ... that they should excuseme.

Dio enhances his undisguised staging of Socrates with ametatheatrical commentary on the highlights and the faults of his ownperformance--in his case, a spectacularly successful strategy, as hisfame and friendship with Trajan attest. In all Dio's speeches onCynic and Stoic themes, of course, the audience could never forget theother performance that is occurring simultaneously"onstage"--his own dramatic persona, the bearded and robedCynic philosopher haranguing the people. (37)

In his large corpus, Aelius Aristides prefers to marry currentevents with vividly narrated recreations of classical authors. In hisoration on the tense relations among the Asian cities Ephesus, Smyrna,and Pergamon, for example, he relates their situation to the rivalrybetween the Spartans and the Athenians in a polished precis of Herodotusand Thucydides (23.42-52 = Dindorf 42.528). Philostratus'observations on the sophists interest in the styles of classical modelssuggest that Aristides and his contemporaries "marked" theirquotations with vocal tones or gestures, which would help the audienceidentify the original author-at the very least, alerting them that aquotation was being made. But this is also Aristides' opportunityto make a show of the literary knowledge of the [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] The melody of Gorgias, the forcefulness ofDemosthenes, and the liquid quality of Plato (whom, interestinglyenough, rhetoricians consider the best model for panegyric oratory)provide the basic material for Aristides' invention [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCE IN ASCII] but his real challenge lies in delivering thequotation in such a way as to leave no doubt as to its classicalorigins. (38)

Since each spoken word and literary reference is filtered throughthe lexical and cultural sieve of the imperial Greek vision of classicalAthens, the sophistic speech is always already a mimetic act. Thesophists are clearly aware of this: Aelius Aristides reads the heavy useof rhythm and ornament in sophistic oratory as the product of a closeproximity between oratory and theater, and uses theatrical terms todescribe the oratorical scene [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], 34.7= Dindorf 50.403; cf. 34.57 = 50.414; 50.28 = 26.324). Moreprovocatively, they thematize the dramatic elements of theirperformances. This is clearly the case with regard to one of the mostdemanding aspects of sophistic oratory, its Attic lexicon and dialect.Failure to meet the standards of Attic purism brings swift reprisal inmany anecdotes in Philostratus and Aulus Gellius (e.g., VS 574, 579,588, 624; NA 3.1, 13.25), much parodied by Lucian (in the [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], and[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]). When the sophist Philagrusaccidentally uttered a solecism, for example, a rival's studentswiftly pounced: "And in what famous work is that word used?""In Philagrus," was the disgruntled reply (VS 578). Suchexchanges transform sophistic [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] intoanother kind of agonistic theater. Another example is the sophists'handling of the strenuous demands of oratory. On the one hand, oratorsmust control all signs of anxiety, anger, or fear, emblematic of the"constant strain involved in maintaining a truly masculine profilein the face of such exacting standards." (39) The ways in which thesophists the-atricalize their labors in this respect, however,particularly those that distinguish them from philosophers, or fromaverage forensic or deliberative orators, suggest that the rhetoric ofeffortlessness is itself simply another part of the sophists'self-stylization. When nearing the end of a rhetorical period,Philostratus writes, Polemon pronounced the final words with a smile, asif his effort was painless [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] VS 537).But the point here is that Polemon is making an act of the pretense ofeffortlessness: his smile is meant to be noticed, an integral part ofthe act of display. Herodes Atticus staged his linguistic purism in adifferent way, by befriending a strikingly tall Boeotian who spoke apure rustic Greek; eventually the Athenians began to call the manHerodes' Heracles [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 552).Herodes' friendship with the Attic giant and his well-knowninterest in the man's accent and speech advertise his obsessionwith perfecting the sophistic act in the open-air theater of publicgossip.

Performance at the Limits of Propriety

Polemon's stamping and Herodes Atticus' unusual socialconnection are just two examples of the many ways in which the sophisticperformance risks violating the conventional proprieties that ancientrhetoric is designed to inculcate. There was a popular set of sophistswho, in Aristides' words, "betray the mysteries oforatory" with "mincing, drunken behavior" like dancinggirls (Or. 34 = Dindorf 18.56). (40) Aristides accuses these"terrible opponents" of indulging in oil anointings, wavingpalm leaf fans, and praising swimming pools and other signs of luxury, alist comparable to Lucian's satirical attacks on the sophists. (41)The criticism leveled by Aelius Aristides and others at the sophists whoperformed in sing-song, effeminate voices, and who spent their time"imitating those undeserving of imitation," as Aristides sayslater in the same oration, serves to highlight the fact that mimeticacts of some kind--even the imitation of women or Asiatics--are centralto the sophistic profession. What matters, apparently, is the potentialfor some to push their imitations too far.

But how far was too far? The question is difficult to answer.Philostratus has this to say of Hadrian of Tyre:

[LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]" (587, 590)

He performed the duties of the chair of rhetoric at Athens with thegreatest ostentation, wore very expensive clothes, bedecked himself withprecious gems, and used to go down to his lectures in a carriage withsilver-mounted bridles; and always after the lecture he would go homeenvied by everyone, escorted by those who loved Hellenic culture fromall parts of the world...I myself know that some of his followersactually used to shed tears when they remembered this sophist; sometried to imitate his accent, others his walk or the elegance of hisattire ... [Critics] slander him in saying he had shameless mannersbecause, when one of his pupils sent him a present of fish lying on asilver plate embossed with gold, he was enchanted with the plate and didnot return it, and in acknowledging the present to the sender, he said,"It was very kind of you to send the fish as well."(Translation adapted from Wright)

Entering the profession of sophist signified an opportunity tochange one's personal style from austerity to extravagance, asAristocles of Pergamum, once a sober follower of the Peripatetics,becomes an avid devotee of music and the theater (VS 567). A nativeGreek, Scopelian of Clazomenae, was "given to pitch-plasters andprofessional hair-removers" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Vs536) and attracted a brilliant band of devoted students with his powersof delivery. He was said to sway excessively as he performed, as thoughin a Bacchic frenzy; when one of Polemo's students compared him toa drum-musician, Scopelian claimed that his oratorical rhythm was themartial beat of the shield of Ajax (VS 519-520). Alexander Peloplatonwas conspicuous for his beauty and charm, but was rumored to rely oncosmetics. When he gave an epideictic performance before Antoninus Piusand grew annoyed when the emperor's attention wandered, Alexanderbegan to shout for him to listen. Antoninus, irritated, retorted,"'I am paying attention, and I know you very well. You are thefellow who is always arranging his hair, polishing his teeth, buffinghis nails, and smelling of myrrh" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE INASCII] VS 571). As for Favorinus of Arles, he offered his own aptself-description with the characteristically paradoxical and provocativestatement that though he was a Gaul he lived like a Greek; a eunuch, hehad been tried for adultery; and after quarreling with the emperor, hewas still alive (VS 489).

Polemon, the self-appointed physiognomical arbiter of ethics,turned decisively against Scopelian when he came under attack foreffeminate habits (VS 536). But he himself was accused of indulging inoutrageous luxuries, because he travelled in a Phrygian or Gaulishchariot with silver ornaments with an extravagant number of slaves,baggage-animals, horses, and dogs (VS 532). (42) He demanded extremelyhigh fees and was believed by the citizens of Smyrna to have embezzledfunds (VS 533, 538). Flagrantly arrogant toward both Roman officials andhis audiences, Polemon began an oration at Athens by saying, "Mensay, Athenians, that you are wise judges of speeches: I shall see ifthey are right" [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 535).Philostratus calls him [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]and [LANGUAGENOT REPODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (535), and reports that his sharp wit wasnotorious (VS 537, 541-42). (43) At this stage it is worth recalling thedissonance between Dio Chrysostom's egregiously austere style of life--a careful imitation, complete with costume, of a Cynicphilosopher-and his identity as a wealthy landholder, a powerfularistocrat in his own regions. (44)

It is true that much of this evidence relies on Philostratus, aneccentric reporter with his own intellectual and cultural agenda. Thisshould not disqualify it from consideration in a study of the dynamicsof imperial Greek culture. When we seek to understand the developmentand practice of an ethics, a set of ideals defining masculine andaristocratic virtue, we must also account for ways in which the rules ofvirtuous behavior are broken--especially when the men who do so do notlose, but rather make significant gains in economic and symboliccapital. I have tried to present a balanced picture of the sophisticperformance, in the sense that the performance is a balancing act: itframes itself as upholding conventional expectations regarding properelite masculine disposition, but its stylized nature ultimatelystretches the rules of convention. Still, the question remains: Why didthe sophists take such risks? Imitation, ostentation, luxury,extravagance, charm, frenzy, excess, self-absorption, perfumes: in aculture that Gleason calls a "calisthenics of manhood," whydid some men adopt mannerisms of self-presentation that served asstylized signifiers of the feminine and the non-elite in both theirperformances and their daily lives? (45) Can tradition and thepedagogical origin of the sophists' speeches alone explain theirmelodramatic oratorical styles, and their focus on the most sensationalmoments in Greek myth and history-from the pathetic laments of Hecubaand Niobe for their dead children to Demosthenes' efforts to arouseAthens against Philip?

Reclaiming Mimesis: Rhetorical Traditions in Conflict

In the Greek imperial period, the mental and bodily disciplinarypractices of the self are transformed, as the emphasis shifts from themanagement of the body and voice to the effect of the act itself-untilthe act takes over entirely. Playing the characters of Demosthenes orPericles is no longer just a way to "be" a proper elite man,but instead offers a way to make "playing" into"being," and perhaps vice versa. The sophists' choice tospeak in the voices of others, whether those of women or of long deadGreeks of the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E., and their everydayassumption of behaviors that break with conventional standards ofmanliness or nobility push the refined habits of the imperial [LANGUAGENOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII) into the realm of theater-and to allaccounts, with enormous success. This involves adopting a polemicalstance against the long-standing tradition that yoked theatricality withvice, femininity, and political disenfranchisem*nt. Significantly, theloudest pronouncements of thi s type appear in the rhetorical and moraldiscourse of Rome.

The Greek sophists were active at a time when, as Susan Alco*ckwrites, Greeks and Romans were engaged in a "tense dialogue of'cultural mapping,' of mutual self-definition and aggressivemaintenance of boundaries" (109). "Overall it is less and lesseasy to accept the view that a harmonious cultural equilibrium was everreached between Greek and Roman cultures," Greg Woolf suggests,"whether in the Rome of Augustus or the Athens of Hadrian"(117). The sophists are best seen, I believe, as carrying the culturaldialogue into the field of rhetoric. Like the sophists, Roman oratorsand rhetoricians of the late Republic and early empire viewedperformance with what we might call a "physiognomical eye." ToCicero, "delivery is entirely a matter of emotion; and the face isthe mirror of emotion, the eyes its index" (animi est enim omnisactio, et imago animi vultus, indices oculi, De Or. 3.59.221). What mostclearly differentiates the sophistic approach to the ethics ofperformance from the Roman approach are the sophists' attitudestoward the act of performance itself.

The writings of Roman rhetoricians praise oratory for its abilityto inculcate suitable moral values in the practitioner. Oratoricaltraining and performance drew a man's appearance in line with elitevisions of "natural" propriety, through a process designed to"complement nature and fulfill a teleology latent within it."(46) To treat rhetoric, however, as an artificial art by which naturalsigns of elite masculinity may emerge is to place an ethical paradox atthe center of elite pedagogy and politics. To this problem thecharacteristic Roman response was concealment. One must scarcelyacknowledge that the problem exists: "I am only going on for solong about style," Cicero says defensively in the third book of theDe Oratore, "because the orators, who are the actors of reality,have abandoned it, while the actors, the imitators of reality, havetaken control of it" (haec ideo dico pluribus quod genus hoc totumoratores, qui sunt veritatis ipsius actores, reliquerunt, imitatoresautem veritatis, histrione s occupaverunt, 3.56.214). As for speaking inother voices, bringing the theatricality of the oration to theforeground, Quintilian strenuously warns against it (Inst. Orat. 1.11.3,2.2.9, 11.3.112). It is necessary for the good Roman orator to hide hiszealous efforts to be eloquent in order to distance them from the actthat, in reality, they are. (47)

In the context of the cultural differences between Greeks andRomans in the high empire, what now appears most remarkable about Greeksophistic oratorical and practical performance is the degree to whichthe things singled out for special note by Philostratus in hisbiography, or by the sophists themselves in their own writings, areprecisely those elements of oratorical performance singled out by Romanrhetoricians for the harshest critique. It seems, then, that theseGreeks play up Roman vices: they imitate, pose, wear perfume, play thewoman. Above all, they do not conceal the mimetic habits that Romanorators treat with fear and disgust. We might say, then, that the Greeksophists reclaim the theatrical aspects of rhetoric which Romanrhetoricians are so eager to disavow and demonize. It is true thesophists themselves could and did easily mobilize the language ofethical condemnation in the course of their competitions for studentsand prestige: Dio Chrysostom, Aelius Aristides, Polemon, and other sophists in Philostratus are all on record as doing precisely that. Isuggest, however, that the the atricalized way in which they moralizemust ultimately transform the effect of their pronouncements. The Greeksophists embrace the art and theatricality of speechmaking, and in afashion that stakes a new claim and gives new energy to the politicallysubversive extravagance of performance itself. As their performancesactively reclaim the classical Greek tradition, especially itsachievements in mimetic drama, they shoot a politically edged glance atthe deepest anxieties of Roman rhetoric. Their efforts should be seen asmaking a significant contribution to the developing history of the selfover the next two centuries. (48)

Theories of Resistance

After the critique of ethical systems based on discipline andrepression executed in his previous work, as well as his statement ofpurpose in the introductory first volume of the History of Sexuality,Foucault's implied claims for the salutary potential of ethicalaskesis in Volume 3 come as something of a surprise. Elsewhere he hadsuggested that dominant structures of power and knowledge may (andshould) be contested by acts of "micro-resistance"--performative practices that, operating within the bounds ofconventional cultural expectations, exploit and even subvert them."Points of resistance are present everywhere in the network,"writes Foucault, "but this does not mean that they are only areaction or a rebound, forming with respect to the basic domination anunderside that is in the end always passive, doomed to perpetualdefeat." (49) Where the disciplinary practices of imperial askesismay be rehabilitated as resistant practices, Foucault implies, is theirpotential to reward the practitioner with pleasure: "The end resultof this elaboration is still and always defined by the rule of theindividual over himself. But this rule broadens into an experience inwhich the relation to self takes the form not only of a domination butalso of enjoyment" (1986: 68); in other words, the ethical systemdesigned to control the body's pleasures begins to produce them. Inresponse, Terry Eagleton and Leo Bersani have warned that with this lineof argument Foucault blurs important distinctions among the ethical, theaesthetic, and the erotic which his earlier work had sought to uphold.If Foucault's late ethical stylistic allows self-discipline anddenial to be rewritten as pleasure, then, Bersani concludes, livingaccording to its rules comes "perilously close to simply'living with style.'" (50) Feminist critics have sharplycriticized Foucault's apparent valorization of disciplinarypractices in a world that uses the same practices, or only slightlydifferent versions of them, to oppress women and the economic underclass. (51) Still, the continuing debate in recent works onsubjectivity and self-fashioning attests that Foucault's insightinto the potential embedded in self-disciplinary practices to resisttheir own rules, particularly through the production of pleasure,remains suggestive. It is here that the public speakers of the SecondSophistic intervene, serving as a corrective to Foucault'sdecoupling of the philosophical objective of the ancientpractitioners' acts of self-care from the mobile excitement oftheir performances, and as an example of the micro-resistance heimplicitly seeks.

Contemporary ethicists, especially feminists, continue to debateover the technologies of self-fashioning and discipline used by imperialGreeks and Romans. Take the watchful gaze bent upon a student by histeacher of rhetoric: is it evidence of the increased policing ofsexuality and identity, or might it offer the basis for theorizing acommunal alternative of ethical self-formation that treats the body as alegitimate field of ethical formation, rejecting earlier anti-communal,individualist labors-one more congenial with post-Enlightenmentappropriation by ourselves? (52) I have tried to break this impasse byfocusing on the sophists' theatrical exploitation of the communalscrutiny that imperial writers on ethics consider a central aspect offashioning the good man. On the one hand, it is precisely their masteryof rhetoric's performative aspects that grants the sophist a placein the rhetorical school, civic festival, and the political assembly ofthe imperial city: their ability to advertise their know ledge of thevarious systems of rules that govern elite masculine behavior (whetherthey spring from a specific philosophical school, as in the case of DioChrysostom, or from the broader conventions of elite [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]), and out of them to create a performance. Whatdifferentiates sophistic practice from the ethics manifested elsewherein imperial intellectual writings is the exaggeratedly theatricalizedqualities in their oratory and their daily lives. The sophists'speeches play out the ethical identity proper to the elite [LANGUAGE NOTREPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], not in the sphere of internal contemplation orthe private circle of like-minded friends, but in a public space, whereit is performed with all the stylish techniques available to the trainedrhetorician. Consequently, the sophists' putative functions-aswalking symbols of conventional Greek [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE INASCII], as ideal models of civilized refinement, as teacher-transmittersof an exceedingly narrow version of Hellenic culture-metamorphose into ashow. (53) This show, a theatricalization of the self, is capable ofexpressing a resistant relation to dominant influences in politics andculture, as Richard Ellmann describes Oscar Wilde, "conducting, inthe most civilized way, an anatomy of his society, and a radicalreconsideration of its ethics" (xiv).

It is with this in mind that I have explored the performances ofthe Greek sophists like Polemon, who hoisted their undeniablytraditional areas of cultural knowledge-defined by their interest inrhetorical [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], linguistic archaism,the preservation of classical Athenian history through oratoricalreenactment, and the elite arts of askesis--into the unconventionalheights of personal theater, in this case the very theater viewed byRoman rhetoricians with prejudice and suspicion. Their "theater ofthe elite man" demonstrates precisely how the prescriptions of theperformance of proper manliness which fill imperial rhetorical handbooksand ethical treatises contain the seeds of their own subversion. Theyalso stand as acts of micro-resistance in the Foucauldian sense, but, asit happens, resisting Foucault's own account of the ethics of theirsociety. The extravagant acts of the sophists balance the falseausterity of Foucault's own dispassionate rhetorical style, theproduct o f his failure to discern the capacity of the performative tocontest convention, to resist, on some level, the dominant structuresthat produce it. It is this vital capacity to resist, perhaps, thatcaused Polemon to cry so desperately for a body with which he mightdeclaim--a body that, through performance, could literally embody hiscommitment to the long history of Greek performance art to which thesophists gave new life. (54)

JOY CONNOLLY is Assistant Professor of Classics at StanfordUniversity. She has published articles on elegy, oratory, and ancienteducation, and is now completing a book on Roman rhetoric. Other currentresearch interests include Vergil's Eclogues and the influence ofclassical rhetoric on early American political thought.

(1.) References to Philostratus' Lives of the Sophists willhenceforth appear in the abbreviated form VS. Unless otherwise stated,translations are my own. It should be noted from the start that theaccounts of the sophists in Aulus Gellius and Philostratus areinordinately influential in modern views, including my own. Although Ihave indicated that reliance at several points in the main text, I wantto acknowledge the tendency of both authors (but especiallyPhilostratus) to overestimate the sophists' fame and social statusin their desire to write them into the center of imperial intellectualhistory.

(2.) These include funeral orations and "civic" orations,which in their present state are hard to attach to any specific contextbut which played a much larger role in sophistic practice than admittedin most studies (e.g., Anderson 156ff. and 171ff., who misleadinglycharacterizes the sophists as "storytellers" "atplay"). Russell discusses performance context in detail.

(3.) [LANGUAGE NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] Wilamowitz, esp. 13ff.,argues that Philostratus invented the Second Sophistic; Brunt advanceshis arguments, with some modifications. With a somewhat less skepticaleye, Stanton usefully untangles the labels sophist, philosopher, andrhetor in literary and epigraphical evidence from the Neronian throughSeveran periods, work materially advanced by Schmitz.

(4.) Two landmark studies are Bowersock, a prosopographical workthat tracks the sophists' prominence in the Roman imperialgovernment, and Reardon, a study of the sophists' literaryproduction.

(5.) A few examples: Goldhill uses the Greek novel to critiqueFoucault's views on sexuality and its regulation; in their work onthe practices of the imperial body, Rousselle and Brown grant to them abroad historic-cultural significance that reflects Foucault'sapproach; Gleason works with Foucault's constructionist theory ofgender; Perkins elaborates his thoughts on the significance of pain andself-control in the making of the imperial subject.

(6.) Brown 49-52 approaches the self-disciplinary habits of Greekeducation (and their function in the political power nexus of the Romanempire) in a fashion very similar to Foucault's.

(7.) Regarding what I am calling cultural line-crossing, I do notwish to conceal the tensions affecting Roman participation in what theRomans themselves considered originally Greek practices, especiallyphilosophy, although in the area of medicine Cato's comments onGreek doctors (still remembered in Plutarch's time) come to mind(Cat. Mai. 23). The Romans used the words sophistes and sophista torefer to Greeks; and while Apulcius and Fronto exhibit what are oftencalled "sophistic" interests in Latin literary and linguisticantiquity, such a culturally loaded movement as archaism calls forseparate analysis in the Latin West and South. Certainly Philostratusimplies that the sophists gained fame in Greek-speaking areas becausethey were reviving, specifically, the thought of classical Greece.

(8.) Gibbon 84 famously claimed that "the beauties of thepoets and orators, instead of kindling a fire like their own, inspiredonly cold and servile imitations: or if any ventured to deviate fromthose models, they deviated at the same time from good taste andpropriety"; see also Wilamowitz 10-12 and van Groningen, passim.

(9.) Perkins describes the Sacred Tales of Aelius Aristides asconstructing a subjectivity around "what is essentially abody" (176). Long, esp. 284ff., provides extensive philosophicaldiscussion of Stoic thought on the self in the imperial period.

(10.) Foucault 1986: 89-95 tries to distinguish his work from thetraditional narrative of the growth of individualism in the Hellenisticperiod; on the notable role of Stoicism in this process, see Long.

(11.) Barthes 7-9 discusses the ideology and the class origins ofthis "classificatory" function of ancient rhetoric.

(12.) Bourdieu, esp. 69, argues that hexis is defined by, and helpsdefine, political mythology, as beliefs about the supposedly naturalcharacteristics of any individuated class or group undergo a process ofenactment through the minutiae of bodily practice. Hexis (the Greek wordfor order) thus resides in the details of individual bodily disposition.

(13.) Gleason xxii employs the metaphor of gymnastics; Gunderson187 characterizes Roman rhetoric as a panoptical process; Connolly 1998and Richlin explore ancient rhetorical education's role in theinculcation of masculine hexis.

(14.) Demetrius of Phalerum and Aeschines are both cited as theinventor of rhetorical exercises: ancient pedigree justifiescontemporary pedagogy.

(15.) Dio Chrysostom, for example, spoke about and imitated theCynics, while Aristides handled Platonic themes and Polemon engaged withPeripatetic writings on physiognomy. Nonetheless, we should generallyavoid classifying them as narrow partisans of one particularphilosophical school, keeping in mind the insight of Foucault and othersinto the ethical eclecticism characteristic of the period.

(16.) Contrast Cornelius Nepos, Suetonius, or Plutarch, whosephysical descriptions of their subjects never dominate the biography,with the way Philostratus blends his accounts of the sophists'speaking styles with their characters.

(17.) Quintilian, Inst. Orat. 11.1.30: ut vivat, quemque etiamdicere. Aelius Aristides describes a dream in which the currentemperors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, speak to him about thisconnection (Or. 47.49). It is important to note that a sophist'sstore of cultural knowledge factors into the equation here, for anorator cannot speak properly unless he has read the right books-a usefulparadox for ancient educators like Quintilian (10.1-131) and DioChrysostom (Or. 18).

(18.) For similar expressions of opinion, see Lucian's Teacherof Rhetoric (Rhet. Did.) and Dio Chrysostom, Or. 32.

(19.) On health and philosophy compare Seneca, Ep. Mor. 54, 78;also Galen, Method of Healing 10.156K. Prognosis 7.18, 10.2, and othermedical texts cited in Perkins 143-72. Perkins 173 critically notes howthe so-called "hypochondriacal" nature of contemporarywritings is often misleadingly attacked as evidence of the period'scultural decay.

(20.) See, e.g., 1.9, 22, 38; 2.28, 31; 4.26, 28, 48, 61 and 69.Perkins eloquently shows that Aristides "somatized" hisdreams, taking the body as the fundamental point of reference for theconstruction of a "suffering" subjectivity (178, 188).

(21.) Behr 73 discusses the Zosimus episode in detail.

(22.) Aristides' protest recalls the traditional explanationfor the failure of Isocrates to engage in public oratory (VS 505).

(23.) Dio Chrysostom, Or. 4.88, offers another sophisticperspective on physiognomy.

(24.) Gleason 29-54.

(25.) Megistias of Smyrna (Philostratus, VS 618), Eusthenes (Anth.Pal. 7.661), and Adamantius, the epitomator of Polemon, are othersophist-physiognomists known to us.

(26.) Phys. 68, 1.284f. cited in Gleason 48.

(27.) Despite their later popularity as handbooks of literarycriticism (influencing Milton, for example), their influence in extantsophistic works, as Russell and Reader show, is clear.

(28.) Lucian, Rhet, Did. 19; Aristides, Or. 34; Philostratus, VS513.

(29.) On the form and ideology of dialect usage, Swain is thedefinitive study; on the nature of the canon, a matter of generalcontestation for contemporary grammarians and rhetoricians, see Morgan94-151 and Connolly 2001.

(30.) Wooten 131-37 usefully compares Hermogenes' techniquewith that of Cicero and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. See especiallyHermogenes' technique at 241-64, and Demetrius' discussion ofmeter (2.42ff.). The identity of Demetrius is still a matter of dispute,but internal evidence makes it unlikely that the text is written asearly as the third century B.C.E. (though most MSS take Demetrius ofPhalerum to be the author).

(31.) For the categorization of different performance forms, seethe extensive discussions of Leeman and Russell 74ff.