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III. The Politics of Language and Style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2016

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Extract

As we saw in the previous chapter, sophistry was, among other things, a space for competition between individual ambitions within the hierarchy of the Greek aristocracy. When a sophist took to the stage, he sought to impress his audience with the vigour and subtlety of his paideia (education, culture); at the same time, though, he exposed himself to real risks: ‘face’ could be lost much more easily than it could be won.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Surveys in the Classics , Volume 35: The Second Sophistic , 2005 , pp. 41 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 2005

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References

1 For a good general survey of the history of the Greek language., see Horrocks (1997).

2 Tonnet (1988), 1.313-51; Swain (1996), 43–64; Schmitz (1997), 67–96. This view that Atticism was a Kunstsprache (or artfully contrived form of speech) is the modern con sensus, against Higgins (1945) who argues that it was an extension of everyday ‘standard late Greek’.

3 Schmid (1887-96) is exhaustive.

4 On this passage, see further Whitmarsh (2001), 103–6, noting the similar phrase at Lives of the Sophists 553.

5 A number of texts survive On Barbarism and Solecism, one by Herodian and others anonymous. See also RG 3.9, 11, 44, 59, 85.

6 For references to the Attic dialect, see Lives of the Sophists 490, 503, 509, 553, 568, 592, 594; for Marcus’ Doric, see 529.

7 Lives of the Sophists 553; see ch. 2, ‘Norm and deviance’. Comparable, too, is the case of Herodes’ Indian Autolecythus, who barbarically ‘mixes Attic with Indian words’ {Lives of the Sophists 490).

8 Cf. Lucian, How to Write History 21.

9 The most notable are those of Harpocration (Usages of the Ten Orators), Aelius Dionysius (Attic Words), Phrynichus (Selection of Attic Words and Phrases’, his Preparation for Sophistry survives only in fragments), Julius Polydeuces (or ‘Pollux’: his Onomasticon or Wordbook survives, although again it is thought to be an abridged version), and Moeris’ Attic Lexicon. See Swain (1996), 32, n. 35, 51–6; Schmitz (1997), 75–83. Hansen (1998), 36–61 discusses Moeris’ precursors in Attic lexicography.

10 On Philetas’ Ataktoi glössai, see Bing (2003), with further references.

11 Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon 120; Lycurgus, frags 6.2, 8–9.

12 FGrH 328 F10.

13 McArthur (1986).

14 See Jeanneret (1991); and on Athenaeus, Braund and Wilkins eds (2000).

15 For Lucian on Atticism, see especially Swain (1996), 45–9. For his self-subverting use of personae, see ch. 5, ‘Self-description and self-praise’. On the Lexiphanes, see Weissenberger (1996).

16 Philostratus also explicitly criticizes ‘hyperatticism’: see Life of Apollonius 1.17, and his short tract on letter-writing (Kayser (1871), 2.258).

17 See most conveniently and fully Swain (1996), 298–308.

18 See further ch. 5, ‘Autobiographies and apologetics’.

19 Arrian, Dissertations of Epictetus 3.2.11, 3.8.1, 3.21 (title), 3.26.16, 4.5.4. On Epictetus, particularly as a philosopher, see the excellent account of Long (2002), with pp. 12–13 on his relationship to conventional paideia; also Schmitz (1997), 87–8.

20 Galen, , On the Faculties of Food 3, vol. 6, p. 579 KühnGoogle Scholar. Gripes against the Atticists recur in this book: see pp. 580, 584, 641; more generally on Galen’s resistance to Atticism, see Swain (1996), 56–62; Schmitz (1997), 80–2.

21 Galen, , On the Order of his Own Books, vol. 19, p. 60 KühnGoogle Scholar.

22 On the sophistical aspects of medicine, see Pearcy (1993); von Staden (1997); also ch. 1, n. 59.

23 On the Order of his Own Books, vol. 19, p. 60 Kühn; Swain (1996), 60; cf. Schmitz (1997), 82.

24 For Arrian, see ch. 1, n. 32.

25 Photius, Library 58; Suda A 3868.

26 For Arrian’s informed and self-conscious use of dialect, see Tonnet (1988), 1.313— 51, focusing on Atticism; on the Ionic of the Indian Matters, see Lightfoot (2003), 93–5.

27 A pair of titles {How Attic Emulation Differs from Asian and Against the Phrygians, frags 6, 11 Ofenloch) attributed to Dionysius’ contemporary Caecilius, however, indicates that the Attic-Asian contrast was to be found in wider Greek culture too. On the differences between Greek Atticism and Roman (which appears earlier in our sources), see Swain (1996), 21–7.

28 For an edition of this text with commentary, see Hidber (1996).

29 See e.g. Swain (1996), 24–7.

30 See Lysias 2, where he commends ‘pure’ Attic diction as a model for all oratory.

31 Rohde (1914), 310–12, quoted and discussed at ch. 1, ‘Inventing the Second Sophistic’; cf. more fully Rohde (1886). Rohde’s position is expanded upon at massive length by Schmid (1887-96).

32 Wilamowitz (1900).

33 Hunter (1983), 84–98.

34 Norden (1898), 1.367-79.

35 Ch. 2, ‘Competition’.

36 See esp. Hartog (1991).

37 For stylistic and rhetorical theory, see especially Russell (1981); Kennedy (1994); Rutherford (1998).

38 The Art of Rhetoric wrongly attributed to Aelius Aristides also frequently commends the use of’innovation’ (1.9.1.2, 1.13.1.7, 1.13.2.1, 2.2.1.17, 2.13.1.24), often linking it with the simple style (apheleia: 2.12.1.5, 2.13.1.21, 2.13.1.26).

39 That sophistry depends upon a command of the kairos is a traditional idea: see Russell (1981), 118, on Isocrates 12.33; also Tordesillas (1986).