Three Homeric Water Similes in Aelius Aristides’ Corpus: Knowledge, Affect, Language

In this paper, I analyze three similes involving water in Aelius Aristides’ corpus. I argue that these similes demonstrate Aristides’ entanglement with water at an epistemological, affective, and linguistic level. This entanglement was rooted in his therapeutic experiences while under the care of Asklepios. Ultimately, I show that in Aristides’ rhetorical corpus, we have evidence of a person very much made and remade by this (re)vitalizing nonhuman agent.