From Sophists to Philosophers. Written Discourse and Portraiture in the Imperial Graeco-Roman East

Summary The literary/cultural phenomenon of the ‘Second Sophistic’ has provided an enduring and highly influential lens through which to approach Greek culture under the Roman empire. Older and recent studies have understood the ideal of the glamorous public performer/epideictic rhetor as the dominant option for expressing a deeply-held Hellenic identity in the Roman Imperial era. Second and third-century A.D. sophisticated portraits of private individuals from the Graeco-Roman East have been a lynchpin in associating this claim with visual culture. This article argues that a distinctively philosophical, unassuming style was an equally, if not more, popular option for expressing elite identity and status in real life and sculpture. Focusing on portraits of private individuals, literary testimonia, and public honorific inscriptions, I investigate the co-optation of the philosophical modus vivendi into ambitious elite visual agendas in the wake of a radical re-assessment of Greek philosophical values by Roman imperial authority at the turn of the first century A.D.