God and Man in the Second Sophistic

Philostratus, in describing the sources for his biography of the 1^st century Neopythagorean sage Apollonius of Tyana, complains that a certain Moeragenes, “does not deserve attention: he wrote four books about Apollonius and yet was greatly ignorant about the master” (VA I.3.2). Given remarks like this, among others, a substantial portion of modern scholarly discussion of Philostratus’s Vita Apollonii has been occupied by the debate about the identity and nature of Philostratus’s sources.

This paper examines the catalog of giant bones (7.9-8.17) and the catalog of heroes (25.17-42.4) in the Heroicus in light of claims in modern scholarship about the re-enchantment of Greece under Rome, and the corresponding revival of traditional hero cult in the Imperial Greek period (cf. Gabba 1981, Henrichs 1999, and Jones 2010).

The Didactic Oracle: The Delphic Oracle in Plutarch’s ‘Delphic Dialogues’

Sacrificing to hungry gods: Lucian on ritual

The Second Sophistic gave rise to considerable interest in divine intervention. Despite the decline of certain sanctuaries and cult practices, gods were thought to communicate with devotees regularly by means of dreams, waking visions, and oracular responses. Tales describing and authenticating divine miracles gained popularity. There also arose a tradition of texts expressing skeptical attitudes toward such phenomena.