Aelius Aristides between Greece, Rome, and the Gods
Author(s): William V. Harris (Editor), Brooke Holmes
Publisher: Brill
Publication Date: November 27, 2008
Edition: 1st
Language: English
Print length: 340 pages
ISBN-10: 9004172041
ISBN-13: 9789004172043
Book Description
Wealthy, conceited, hypochondriac (or perhaps just an invalid), obsessively religious, the orator Aelius Aristides (117 to about 180) is not the most attractive figure of his age, but because he is one of the best-known — and he is intimately known, thanks to his Sacred Tales — his works are a vital source for the cultural and religious and political history of Greece under the Roman Empire. The papers gathered here, the fruit of a conference held at Columbia in 2007, form the most intense study of Aristides and his context to have been published since the classic work of Charles Behr forty years ago.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“This volume fills a gap that has been allowed to develop in the scholarly literature and provides a detailed portrait of one of antiquity’s most entertaining figures. Though the core market is undoubtedly those with an interest in the Second Sophistic, the range of the papers ensure that this volume will appeal to classicists with a more general curiosity concerning Aristides” (Bryn Mawr Classical Review, July 2009).
From the Back Cover
Wealthy, conceited, hypochondriac (or perhaps just an invalid), obsessively religious, the orator Aelius Aristides (117 to about 180) is not the most attractive figure of his age, but because he is one of the best-known — and he is intimately known, thanks to his “Sacred Tales” — his works are a vital source for the cultural and religious and political history of Greece under the Roman Empire. The papers gathered here, the fruit of a conference held at Columbia in 2007, form the most intense study of Aristides and his context to have been published since the classic work of Charles Behr forty years ago.
About the Author
W.V. Harris is Shepherd Professor of History at Columbia University and Director of the Center for the Ancient Mediterranean. His book Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity will be published by Harvard University Press in 2009. Brooke Holmes, who took her first degree at Columbia, is an Assistant Professor of Classics at Princeton University. Her first book, The Symptom and the Subject: The Emergence of the Body in Ancient Greece, is forthcoming from Princeton University Press.
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